Everybody’s talking

But Catholics also lost more adherents than any other single religious group in the United States, with one in three adults who were raised as Catholics no longer in that church, the study said. Roughly 10% of Americans are former Catholics.

Evangelical Protestants outnumber Catholics by 26.3 percent (59 million) to 24 percent (54 million) of the population, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, a massive 45-question poll conducted last summer of more than 35,000 American adults.

“There is no question that the demographic balance has shifted in past few decades toward evangelical churches,” said Greg Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum. “They are now the mainline of American Protestantism.

The traditional mainline Protestant churches, which in 1957 constituted about 66 percent of the populace, now count just 18 percent as adherents.

Although one in three Americans are raised Roman Catholic, only one in four adults describe themselves as such, despite the huge numbers of immigrants swelling American churches, researchers said.

“Immigration is what is keeping them afloat,” said John Green, a Pew senior fellow. “If everyone who was raised Catholic stayed Catholic, it’d be a third of the country.

Those who leave Catholicism mostly either drop out of church entirely or join Pentecostal or evangelical Protestant churches, Pew Forum director Luis Lugo said. One out of every 10 evangelicals is a former Catholic, he said, with Hispanic Catholics leaving at higher rates; 20 percent of them end up in evangelical or Pentecostal churches

I think the story really should have been titled “Mainline Protestant tradition fading in the US” – but I guess that’s not a surprise anymore.

But this figure did startle me: In 1957, 66% of Americans were members of mainline Protestant churches. 50 years later, only 18% are part of mainline Protestantism. Now that’s what you call a major fade!

It’s interesting to see the numbers on Catholicism but not huge. The idea that the second-largest religious group in the United States is lapsed/former Catholics has been around for a while. And really, unless you live in a Catholic ghetto, it’s not news either. My daughter, a student in a public high school has an amazing number of friends and acquaintances who come from Catholic backgrounds but whose families don’t go to church – at all. Although we have to allow for self-satisfied exaggeration, ask any evangelical pastor, and he’ll tell you about the percentage of former Catholics in his group. For ages, we’ve been following the adventures of Episcopalians in the United States. No small number of, say, folks who people the pews of Episcopal churches – both liberal and conservative – are former Catholics, there for many reasons including marriage issues. I once heard the stat that 40% of those attending Willow Creek in Chicago were former Catholics. Again, I don’t know how much of that is true and how much is in-your-face competitive pridefulness.

But yeah, there are a lot of non-practicing Catholics out there.

But does anyone care?

I invite you to take a look at the agenda items for the USCCB spring and fall meetings over the past years. Is “evangelization” or “helping people have deeper faith in Christ and his Church” on the agenda? Ever?

Nah.

Part of the problem, quite honestly, is the fact that in certain parts of the country, the demographic shift has worked to the effect that there is no immediate visible sign that anyone is leaving the Catholic Church at all. In the South and the Sunbelt, you have two factors: the fact of simply demographic shift to those parts of the country away from the Midwest and the Northeast combined with Hispanic immigration.

In those parts of the country, they can’t build big enough Catholic churches fast enough. They can’t build Catholic schools fast enough. Ages ago, I was part of an accreditation team visit to a then-new Catholic high school in Northern Virginia. Within four years of their opening they had 1200 students, and the principal told us they could open up another school a mile down the street and it would fill up immediately to the same level.

So when that’s your reality – your Masses are packed, you don’t have enough priests to staff the parishes you could be building, the capital’s not there to build the Catholic schools you know you could fill – you read numbers like those presented in the Pew study and you think, “Well, that’s probably true, but…I’m not seeing it.”

But of course they are, if they’re honest. To me, several factors are key in Catholic contemplation of this problem:

*The spiritual shifts brought on by the Second Vatican Council. Follow me carefully here. Remember that in Church Time, 40 years isn’t very long at all. It’s not long enough to measure the true impact of events or responses. But I think what we’re in the middle of is a readjustment that’s a consequence of both the Council and modernity.

To put it simply and simplistically: You saw much higher levels of adherance and external practice among Catholics before the mid-60’s in the West because many people believed they’d go to Hell if they weren’t there.

People don’t believe that anymore.

(Read Souls and Bodies by David Lodge to get insight into this. The British title of the novel was How Far You Can You Go? which had a double meaning – in terms of sexuality, but also in terms of how far can you go in taking bits of the Catholic schema apart before the whole thing collapses? The loss of the fear of Hell plays a major role.)

I’m not commenting on that reality per se – I’m saying that centuries of Catholic confidence, if you will, on the power of the faith to retain practicing members was rooted in that. That’s gone, for the most part, and not even a part of the picture in catechesis or formation.

And nothing has stepped into replace it – no real recognition of the situation in which we live today, in which the religious marketplace is truly that, with the shoppers carrying around totally different shopping lists than they did 60 years ago.

I’m not saying return to the past. I’m saying that what we’re seeing is in part the fruit of depending on both the pull and hold of cultural and ethnic Catholicism as well as the fear of eternal damnation to keep people in the pews, without really thinking through the consequences. The call of the Second Vatican Council was for the laity to step it up and embrace their faith more intentionally and deeply as a positive response to the redeeming love of God through Christ, but given the cultural and social shifts in the world among other factors, there was bound to be a gap – and we’re living in it now, I’m firmly convinced.

*Why do people leave? There are dozens of reasons. Some are concrete: marriage issues are a big one. Another huge issue is simply that for many, there is no perceived need for Church. What does that have to do with me? I’m busy, I’m happy, I have enough questions about some Church teachings…I have no reason to connect.

But others are harder to pin down, but I think they all – whether you want to mention bad, contentless preaching, poor catechesis, the church-as-sacrament-dispenser-mentality – they all come down to this:

In the US, at least, the Church (we’re generalizing here) hasn’t made the case for Christ.

Hasn’t made the case for the necessity of Christ being the center of one’s life and the sure means of finding and staying connected to Christ being through His Church.

Part of what makes me cringe as I read studies like this is that I imagine the response of Church bureaucrats, ordained and lay – when they bother to respond. At that response always seems to involve “programs” that will “energize” and make everyone all “vibrant” and everything.

My thoughts are basically here. You discuss in your post the “spiritual shifts” of V-II. I think it’s much more a matter of liturgy — lex orandi lex credendi, right? The (abuses of the) Novus Ordo seem to have destroyed people’s rootedness in the faith, for liturgy roots us.

I also think you are right on re: agendas and bureaucrats and the USCCB. It’s easy to come up with programs, but what we need are churches that focus on building people as Christians. Anything that doesn’t serve that end is largely fluff.

I think a large amount of my formation as a young Catholic, and my expectation from then on that of course it’s normal to have a personal relationship with God, was hearing the story of Fatima at school and getting one of those little Blue Army pamphlets on Fatima to take home. Ditto the writings and story of St. Therese, whom I ran into at about the same grade.

It’s not so much miracles (not much miraculous in Therese’s life on earth!) as being provided with a model. That one can just start talking to God, that diligence and self-examination is required, that the Sacraments are important, that the dead are not gone; that suffering is part of following Christ, that life will not be made easy by trying to be holy — but that knowing Christ and following Him is worth any price.

If I had been deprived of the Fatima story or St. Therese, as so many other “unnecessary” things were taken away from our generation, I’m not sure if I would have gotten enough formation to make me want to be and stay Catholic. (Much less to look things up for myself.) So many people have no idea that Catholicism has anything to do with mysticism or devotion or getting to know Christ. It would be funny, if it weren’t so sad.

What keeps people in a group or makes it easy for them to leave. Sociologically the answer seems simple. My former colleague at Univ. of Oregon Benton Johnson published a study on mainline churches and their loss of members: Churches with high demands on their members (in all aspects of life) had high levels of commitment (but when people left they were very angry at the church). Churches with little demand on their people (like the American Catholic Church in practice) have very low commitment in their members (and when they leave they really don’t care much either way).

The mega-churches (what the Pew study mistakenly calls “evangelical” or “fundamentalist”) generally don’t make many demands on their people (certainly not about personal moral behavior). So many dift in and many drift out. And the children usually just drift. They are like the Unitarians: a church made up of ex-members of other churches. They are the current half-way house to secularism, drawing members by feel-good theology and happy music. No demands = no commitment.

Sadly, when I asked Benton about whether any mainline churches ever tried to restore the demands on their people that would produce commitment. His anwser: “They tried, they failed, they died.” Yes, from 66% to 18%!

American Catholics who care about the faith sould read that statistic, look at themselves, and wonder.

The answer is enthusiastic preaching (that also challenges), dynamic weekly adult ed., and evangelization one person at a time. Catholics go to Protestant congregations because people engage them, not because of any ‘program’. Not a fan, but Barack Obama shows the influence that a fired up person can have on the masses.

We need less bureaucracy on the diocesan side and much more of the basics at the parish level – Scripture, devotions, Adult Catechism, teaching prayer in parishes, missions, etc. It all works if someone is excited about it, and then spreads it one by one.

Yeah…what the first comment said. (My first response to the study was to feel appalled at the percentage of people who have left the faith of their youth…until I, raised Lutheran now Catholic, realized I am one of them.)

But, with a convert’s fervor (alas, no ‘vibrancy’ here) I cannot fathom the behavior of those who are lapsed, lackadaisical or lost.

On the other hand…working for a parish, the logistics should everyone decide to start attending Mass are mind-boggling. Almost leading one to think, (forgive me for this…) “God forbid.”

I am a reformed Protestant (PCA) who has been drawn to contemplating Catholicism through Touchstone, First Things, and blogs such as yours. I think what I believe is that there should be only one true church united. However, the reality of the Catholic church here in America is that the Catholic services seem very thin to someone who has had good preaching most of her life. Also, those who came to my church from Catholicism did not seem to get to know God in the Catholic church. So, obviously, the Catholic church in this country is doing something wrong.

You can tell from reading what individual Catholics, including the Pope, have written that the Catholic church is truly Christian (unlike what I was told growing up), but it seems that the actual experience of most Catholics is deficient in some way.

The answer: systematic, deliberative, comprehensive adult catechesis, that begins with first things first (the Gospel and the necessity of Christ) and proceeds to vigorous contemporary defenses of Church doctrine.

Then (not necessarily chronologically) a renewal of liturgical/sacramental life at the parish: which means that 80% of what a parish does should be about celebrating the most beautiful, reverent, and glorious Mass possible, and then vigorously encouraging people to return to Confession. Therefore: offering daily Mass in the evening when normal working people can go; offering Confession during the week, for the same reason; preaching and teaching about Mass and Confession from the pulpit. In summary: doing what we can only do, and other denominations cannot (the Eucharist and Confession). Other appropriate para-liturgical rites and sacramentals follow. The center, foundation, and principle of successful evangelization is the Divine Liturgy.

Also: no longer make baptism and marriage a free pass. Require a firm intention, that proper reasons and will be demonstrated, etc.

As well: preach the integrity of the Gospel to kids, instead of watering it down. Have good, fun, and substantive youth group time during the week. But encourage the youth to be normal members of the parish.

Finally: have the USCCB hire Fr. Robert Barron and Amy Welborn and direct a National Evangelization program. Spend lots of money on it. Have all dioceses participate. Get the word out that the Catholic Church is all about Jesus, and that we have what others don’t.

Lastly: start judging and evaluating the Church in America qualitatively, rather than quantitatively. Have goals be in the former mode, rather than the latter.

(And: I wonder how different this study would look if we could do it regionally. E.g. are all the Catholics leaving the Church in the Northeast dragging the numbers down for the rest of the country; are evangelicals booming some places and not others; and what are the age-breakdowns for all these conclusions–how many thirty-somethings are leaving/returning to the Church verses forty-somethings, etc.)

I would say that you already put the answer wonderfully: people need to be convinced of “the necessity of Christ being the center of one’s life and the sure means of finding and staying connected to Christ being through His Church”

Your follow-up comment on “programs” that “energize” is great…I’m starting to develop a deep cynicism to the constant proliferation of such things, with endless theories about how to fix what’s wrong.

Meanwhile, it seems like Jesus stands invisibly in the background of these committees, shouting like the classic movie ghost “It’s me! I’m the way!” while those who know better chatter unaware.

It always comes back to saints: those for whom Christ really is the center of their WHOLE lives, and the Church really is the SURE way of drawing near to him. Their example sways more hearts and their prayer calls down more grace than the next-best-thing / not-just-another-program / new-way-of-being church / aren’t-committees-great drivel.

The call of the Second Vatican Council was for the laity to step it up and embrace their faith more intentionally and deeply as a positive response to the redeeming love of God through Christ…

Somehow the hierarchy thought that this could be accomplished by telling people not to worry about things like doctrine, etc. When catechesis consisted of, “what do you think? or “How does that make you feel?”, the laity perceived that the institutional Church no longer took its own teaching’s seriously. Subsequently, they left in droves and many who remained decided to pick items off of the “doctrine menu.”

Amy, your point about the fear of Hell is apt. I can confidently say that in most parishes in LA, Hell is a topic that isn’t even discussed, or, if it is, dismissed. Also, how seriously are pastors (read, the Institutional Church) taking the salvation of souls? If they took it seriously and believed in Hell, do you think there would be scarcely 1 hour of Confessions scheduled each week?

One reason I am so excited about Pope Benedict is that it’s obvious he does take Catholic beliefs seriously and he’s taken action to both teach and reinvigorate the faithful.

“In the US, at least, the Church….hasn’t made the case for Christ. Hasn’t made the case for the necessity of Christ being the center of one’s life and the sure means of finding and staying connected to Christ being through His Church.”

This is spot-on. Here in Oregon, the most unchurched state in the US, people are “spiritual,” they will tell you, “but not religious.” Generally this means they have some amalgam of beliefs and ethical principles by which they lead their lives, but no anchor in any tradition, nor any desire to belong to an established church. I have several close friends like this, and truthfully, I am at a loss myself as to how to introduce (or re-introduce) them directly to Christ and His Church. They have no felt or experiential need for Jesus; as one friend said in all sincerety, “I don’t think I need a savior.” At least she could identify what is essential to the meaning of Christianity. I wonder how many practicing Catholics understand it so clearly. The loss of belief in hell and original sin has given rise to a belief in universal salvation. What need, then, is there for Christ and His Church?

This comment by Julia Duin is perplexing: “Evangelical Protestants outnumber Catholics by 26.3 percent (59 million) to 24 percent (54 million) of the population, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, a massive 45-question poll conducted last summer of more than 35,000 American adults.”

What exactly IS an “evangelical Protestant”? What sort of surveys or criteria are used to measure their population? Are they simply self-identified? They seem to come from many denominations and believe many sort of doctrines. In Thomistic parlance, is evangelicalism an accident or a substance?

Furthermore, comparing Catholics to evangelicals is rather an apples and oranges scenario. There aren’t the same structures, disciplines, or traditions. It isn’t particularly burdensome or demanding to be an evangelical. There are no criteria for membership and their retention rate is not particularly high (and that is true of pentecostals as well).

We are an unserious people in a serious time, a bunch of “seekers,” who drift from denomination to denomination in search of what? Basically, something to stimulate us. But we’re not in search of profundity or thought or anything that takes work, because if we were, we would be Catholic and stay Catholic.

The “Catholics Come Home” videos linked in an earlier post are a great example of what the Catholic establishment in America isn’t doing and should be. Watching those, I saw for the first time a real outward-looking evangelization that flowed naturally from Jesus and yet was attuned to contemporary culture. As a not-yet Catholic, I am particularly attuned to how the public face of American Catholicism seems always to be focused on social work, ethnicity, aren’t-we-wonderful community, trendiness, anything over Who we ought to be proclaiming. The sense I get so often is that the Gospel is being claimed (and proclaimed) only indirectly and passively — not “Catholics do this because we believe that” (active) but “we do this because Catholics have always believed that” (passive).

One of the things Amy does not mention but is a corollary of everything she said is the functional Pelagianism of much of the Church in the US. Sherry Weddell comments on this frequently. I teach and encounter this from my high school students all the time – we are saved because we live good lives. The social justice emphasis of the last 40yrs has truly sunk in. There is a near total absence of any sense of the necessity of a living relationship with Jesus Christ in order to attain to heaven.

What is the answer? I don’t know. Perhaps more role models. More Catholics who actually live the Gospel 24×7. Role model families that are open to life and don’t have to have the nicest house and nicest car and every luxury that can be afforded.

Role models who aren’t apathetic but who instead write to their legislators, tithe to their parish and charities and get involved in their parish and community.

Role models who love their enemies and pray for them.

Role models who don’t avoid the cross, but expect to carry many crosses of varying weights for living their faith and who are willing and eager to “offer it up” for themselves and fellow sinners for the love of God.

Role models who are courageous in using the good things of our secular culture to create a visible Catholic subculture — a visible, audible culture where it’s normal to see and hear a Catholic pray before meals in a restaurant, even among mixed company. A culture where non-Catholics who know Catholics for any longer than a brief length of time also know that faith and religious topics will come up, and are discussed charitably.

More role-model Catholics who are joyful and knowledgeable in the faith and instead of waiting to be asked about a particular teaching of the faith, flip the coin and charitably and sincerely ask others why they don’t.

In other words, perhaps the answer is Catholics being more courageously and authentically Catholic.

You said it all, Amy! Here in the extreme North-East, the Church is shrinking rapidly – and ‘programs’ won’t cut it. Interestingly the Pew Report cited an internal survey of Willow Creek mega-church, saying that the majority of their members were “stalled” in their spiritual growth. I think the answer comes back to your previous post about Pope Benedict and the response of a number of commentators – he is teaching – and teaching the basics! The “case for Christ” as you say, will only be made when He is known – and known in His Church and Sacraments – this is Benedict’s great project. As a priest from the South said to me a while back, “we need evangelical Bishops!”

Amy, this is the first time I have ever needed to disagree (though very mildly) with you in a combox.

I myself became a Roman Catholic in the Archdiocese of Atlanta and stayed there for another 10 or so years before moving to the diocese Rich Leonardi loves to despair about – Rochester.

One of the things that immigrant Yankee Romans regularly said – over and over again until one was bored with it – was “you know, when I moved down here I met all these Protestant neighbors who kept asking where I went to church – and pretty soon I found myself a regular mass goer for the first time since grade school.” (by the way, I had an Episcopal priest friend from Ohio who thought he could walk into the Episcopal cathedral in Atlanta 5 minutes before a service and get a decent seat and was appalled to find out that in Atlanta even Episcopalians go to church)

So in my anecdotal experience the immigration to the Bible Belt did coincide for a lot of my acquaintances with a return to the Church – though they were mainly being evangelized by Protestant coworkers and neighbors! I’m not denying that we could do a lot more, but I think the differential in vocations numbers for some Southern dioceses is not just about big immigration – it’s about dynamic practice.

If theoretically there are 150 moral issues (visiting the sick, honoring one’s parents, avoiding sloth, temperate eating, fraternal correction etc (include liturgical ethics),…. less than 6 issues of those 150 issues will always predominate amongst verbal zealous Catholics and amongst the verbal members of the Hierarchy and the relationship of some of those 6 issues to Christ will not be crystal clear except to the Catholic devotee who prioritizes them and who will question your faithfulness or grace if you question him or her on his particular 6 or less issues…(for some it seems like one or two issues only). If only their issue were observed rigorously, the world would be renewed incredibly.
That could scare away some non obsessed people into Evangelical churches where things might be simpler and more about what Christ clearly did say with more issues as a result and not 6….consequence: sincere drifters away from being controlled by the zealous but narrowly focused paradigm.
There are sites on the net largely about the Latin Mass….there are none to my knowledge about visiting the sick as a topic of discussion.

Next…TV beginning in the 1960’s showed many from within their Catholic milieu that there were good non Catholic people doing heroic things in the news and they were doing it without the Catholic concept of sanctifying grace and how one gets in that grace and how one loses that grace. Hence the Catholic watching the Amish on TV building a house for another Amish who suffered a house fire, subconsciously then compared that Amish virtue to his own state of grace at 16 years old that seemed to be achieved by not kissing his girlfriend too long and on little else and he then begins to question his concept of grace (those people are building a family a house….and I’m not kissing over long…what’s wrong with this picture?)….but he questions not articulately but unconsciously, so that he ends up drifting day by day from something…a limited sense of goodness….. but not to something better within his own milieu inter alia because he may have a teacher at school that is stressing sex with 16 year olds….due to the great competition from the media in that area…..result: listless drifters from the Church but to what….not to Amish house building….so to what: more and more TV, recreations and escapism of various kinds by default????

Lastly Arnold Toynbee the mega historian said that cultures grow from properly not improperly responding to a challenge in a permanent not temporary way which produces further challenges to which the culture also responds well ….and further challenges and good responses. He cites the ancient food shortage in Greece and how the Spartans temporarily and inadequately responded by force and theft from neighbors and how the Athenians properly responded with creativity and turned subsistence farming into cash crop farming and developed an export system and solved their problem for the long run and not for the short run of the Spartans.

The challenge of Luther produced the great and healthy and permanent response of the Council of Trent and the clarity it produced for all time on some dogmatic questions; challenge and great response. The challenge of Arianism in the 4th century was not met by one Pope in particular or by Bishops at the time according to Cardinal Newman’s essay on that challenge and thus for decades, the Church drifted.

Do we always in Rome and outside Rome in the past 60 years respond properly…healthily…. and respond for the long run like the Athenians did to the food challenge of their time and as Trent did to the dogma challenge of their time. Each will decide for him or herself.

From where I stand, it seems to me that the real VII generation, the one who was born in the 60’s, who came into the priesthood or into consecrated life is miles more orthodox than its preceding generation, the one who grew up going to the TLM, who did the same.

Sure, today’s numbers in vocation are abysmal, especially when compared to the pre-VII numbers. But, I’ve never thought I’d utter this, it seems that the goals of VII to shake up superficial faith and to strengthen a deeper faith may actually be starting to pay back, God willing.

I think it would help tremendously if Catholics were proud of the things that make us different than “ecclesiastical communities.” B16 said that ecclesiastical communities lacked certain things and so could not properly be called churches (i.e. Eucharist, apostolic succession, etc.) Instead of being perpetually embarrassed by these marks, we should embrace them wholeheartedly and publicly. The marks of the Church make the person of Jesus more appealing than evangelical protestantism ever could. It is because we’ve tried to supress these things that people have left, searching for orthodoxy elsewhere.

Perhaps the questions should rather be why one stays rather than leaves.
Most alternatives offered to Catholics are too repugnant.
One can try to be devout and orthodox, but that so often results in a party spirit.
One can try to be like just the rest of ordinary Catholics. But too many of them just don’t care.
Then there is the ecclesial end of the picture. Either the priests and bishops just don’t care, or if they do care they are either Father Weirdo or Father Authoritarian.

I think another answer is the liturgy. There are many non-Catholics and lukewarm Catholics who come for special occasions such as weddings, baptisms, Christmas, and Easter. If our liturgies were more reverent (not saying most aren’t, I don’ t know), it would not be seen as just the Catholic version of what everyone else is pretty much doing. A reverent liturgy would be a great tool of envangelization.

You could say that if we had more faith, we would BE more reverent, but I think the two feed each other. Unfortunately, it seems we are often too desperate to be entertaining.

“Experiencing a sense of community, hearing a good homily, and receiving the Eucharist are key factors contributing to Mass attendance, the survey reveals, with high majorities of those polled — 82, 74 and 65 percents respectively — saying they either somewhat, strongly or completely agreed with those statements.”

It’s hard to analyze what people were thinking when they answered this question, but of the factors contributing to Mass attendance, I would think “receiving the Eucharist” should be higher than third.

Yes, but which Christ? Ask any secularist or non-Christian today whether they like Jesus and most will say he was a cool guy, but they usually mean the Christ of modern therapeutic deism or Christ the Forerunner of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and John Lennon. The problem today is that there are too many false Christs vying for the souls of Catholics. And from what I hear from our bishops and priests, our clergy doesn’t seem to have a very good idea of which Christ should be the one we follow. I hear plenty of variations on the evangelical Christ: the one we should be emotionally excited and “on fire” for. It’s a Christ who bears little relation to, say the Eastern Orthodox or the distinctively Catholic Christ. But preaching a Christ of private subjective piety is a path that leads straight to the door of the megachurch. The question for our clergy is as always, “Who do you say I am? and don’t just give me a goofy evangelical campy answer!” I wouldn’t have left evangelicalism for the Catholic Church if I relied on the homilies and practices of our Americanist Catholics.

“In the US, at least, the Church….hasn’t made the case for Christ. Hasn’t made the case for the necessity of Christ being the center of one’s life and the sure means of finding and staying connected to Christ being through His Church.”

I’m a convert, so can’t comment on cradle catholics. When I joined, the case for Christ was made very strongly. I’m not sure your generalization is correct.
Perhaps this is more of a generalized cultural change, where the fragmentation of the culture has “allowed” people to do what they want, not what may be best for them. As our respect for authority ( except our own internal authority ) declines, it seems that no longer participating in church is a natural consequence. I’m not sure there’s any “program” to remedy this.

I know this is going to sound wild but we know that for every evangelical who becomes Catholic, roughly eight Catholics become evangelicals. What if those 8 Catholics left us because they actually wanted and needed what evangelicals do very well and we do rather poorly?

What if they don’t actually care much about liturgy? One could draw the conclusion with some confidence since they have moved in a strongly non-liturgical direction. What if they don’t care much or at all for history or Gregorian chant or high culture or fine doctrinal debates that mean so much to us?

What if they were looking for something else that is genuine part of the Christian faith and life but which we don’t do as well. A Christian community that was small enough to actually know who they were and would notice when they showed up – a stranger. What if they desperately needed to experience the transforming power of God in their life or their family’s life? What if they love and find profoundly reverent and moving worship that is full of emotion and movement and spontaneity? What if they needed to be supported and formed by a local community marked by a genuine culture of discipleship?

In other words, what if they really, really were seeking and hungering to encounter God in a way that evangelicals excel at and we do poorly? What if the most beautiful and reverent formal liturgy in the world (as we think of it) just leaves them puzzled or cold?

While it is natural that we keep talking about doing even more of what moves us (who are here and frequenting conservative Catholic blogs) of what drew many of us to the Church – what if it is irrelevant to those who left us?

Most evangelical converts to Catholicism I’ve met are historically and intellectually minded. They were often uncomfortable with the extroverted, more openly emotional and experiential “feel” of evangelicalism. It was a relief to get out of it.

But what if we evangelicals who are drawn to those aspects of the faith are unusual, a minority? What if many of the 8 Catholics who leave for the evangelical world for every evangelical who goes in the other direction are wrestling with quite different issues – perhaps with as much anguish and integrity as we did when becoming Catholics? What if the things they seek of God and the Church are legitimate?

First of all, liturgy is not an “extra.” Read Ratzinger – The Spirit of the Liturgy, Feast of Faith, and so on. You tend to sneer at liturgical conversations, but I think you are very wrong to do so. One of the primary ways in which the Church has evangelized and brought Christ into the world and the faithlife of individuals is through history has been through liturgy, paraliturgy and devotions. One of the things you fail to understand about Catholics interested in liturgy is that they indeed see it as a means of evangelization and a powerful, evocative way of bringing Christ’s presence into the world. You can do a lot with different kinds of evangelization, but somehow, one of the most powerful signs of the presence of Christ is Mass, reverently prayed, in the middle of the City, early in the morning, late in the afternoon. It’s witness. It’s presence.

Secondly, what you fail to factor into your equation is the vast and intense reality of movement within evangelicalism, between churches and groups. Read their own research, which is causing many in evangelicalism a great deal of worry. They admit it freely – they are getting people, but they are not keeping them. They are not keeping the youth, at all, they are not keeping the young adults and many are not even attempting to serve the elderly.

What if we factor that into the equation? How does that change the conversation?

What is true is that many Catholics who leave for evangelicalism do so because they do not feel that Christ was preached or powerfully present in the Catholic Church. I think it’s important for you to understand that liturgy has a great deal to do with that perception.

I have to agree with the comments by Michael Tinkler (#21). It is different in the South. Here in Knoxville, we’re supposed to be one pf the fastest growing doceses in the country, and reportedly we have a fair number of seminarians in the pipeline.

I think the old golden telephone joke says it best:
A man in Topeka, Kansas decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and worked east from there. Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was intrigued by a sign which read: “$10,000 a minute.” Seeking out the Pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The Pastor explained that the golden phone was, in fact, a direct line to Heaven and if he paid the price he could talk directly to God. The man thanked the Pastor and continued on his way.As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York and all around the United States, he found more phones with the same sign and got the same answer from each Pastor.

Finally, he arrived in Alabama. Upon entering a church, behold, he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read: “Calls: 35 cents.” Fascinated, he asked to talk to the Pastor.

“Reverend, I have been in cities all across the country and in each church I have found this golden telephone. I have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to God, but, in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads 35 cents. Why?”

The Pastor, smiling benignly, replied, “Son, you’re in the South now… It’s a local call.”

We’re discounting the effect of the child abuse scandals in shaking many Catholics, especially those on the non-practicing fringes, free from the Church altogether. I’ve seen how devastated Catholic family and friends have been when their pastor, or a priest friend of the family, or even, in one case, their bishop have had to resign. Multiply that by many hundreds, think of the years of detailed media investigating and reporting, the court cases, the huge compensation payments, etc. It is a long time since the US Catholic Church has been reported in a positive context. It has been a terrible time, when immense harm done to vulnerable people has been revealed and church leaders have been pillioried for their mistakes in personnel assignments. When TV drama series mention priests nowadays, it is usually in reference to child abuse. The majority of us cradle Catholics were brought up to revere the priesthood. Trauma is too mild a word for what good Catholics have endured. It has encouraged those on the fringe to disengage and cease calling themselves “Catholic”

I find John E’s study curious and probably right, especially about community. We need massive instruction in welcoming new people and building community. I also think Sherry is on to something. Not everyone is as preoccupied with liturgy concerns as Catholic blogs. Too much insistence on form and too little substance make our Mass celebrations formal, distant and even cold. At least to many people. As a priest in the south we have enjoyed good growth, but possibly at the expense of our northern cities. Many who have come south are retirees with good pensions and time to contribute to the church. Younger families who come here have been management or professional people who have been transferred here. It would be the rare production worker that gets transferred, although GM and the UAW have done some of this. They come with a good promotion and resources for the church. We have benefited from this migration. The loss of many of these good families has to be felt in our older urban area and the small towns of the heartland.

Twice Blessed has some apt fodder for thought about the how typical Catholic praxis in this country tended towards the mere avoidance of vice and cultivation of virtue rather than the theosis we are called to in mature Catholicism and Orthodoxy. When you combine this with a general emphasis on avoiding hell rather than entering heaven, you have a very brittle thing that breaks quite easily and will not readily reset. Mind you, that is a dynamic that waxes and wans on a transgenerational basis over centuries – it’s nothing new – we just have to stop melodramatizing that our age is somehow particularly specially beset in this regard.

Also, don’t underestimate the very long half life of the effect of 20th century developments like the World Wars, the Holocaust and lives of non-Christians like Gandhi that deeply disturbed assumptions about whether Christians qua Christians* had any superior claim on sanctity compared to non-Christians. (*Whereas Christians who were more culturally American were able linger longer in a sense of superiority derived more from American self-satisfaction than Christian sanctity. Hence the enduring popularity of Christian sects in the US that very much identify with the US.)

Another problem is that as American Catholics became more assimilated in postwar prosperity, they imbibed more of the affective aspects of American cultural religion – that it’s about affect, relationship and experience. This is a blended inheritance from the revivalism of Quakers (17th century), New Light Congregationalists and Methodists (18th century), Methodists and Baptists (19th century) and Pentecostalists and others (20th century).

The idea that spiritual dryness – rather than affective connection and validation – is the normal lot of many maturing souls is alien to most American Catholics (and already was becoming so before Vatican II). Until pastors engage the expectations that underlay that alienation, I don’t see much likelihood for progress. It’s in that context that I find the perennial complaints over liturgy somewhat ironic.

Sherry
That 8 to 1 is an amazing stat and I agree with you very much in all your points but you can now see the problem again right here in this thread. Some people love in the Mass as solemnity…… what others feel is not solemnity at all but interpersonal isolation. So the one side is always thinking that the other side just does not yet see the beauty of their way….but one day they will. Both should allow for the other to be different permanently since these aspects are probably rooted in our early childhood and in our family life. We need two radically different psychological types of Masses….one based perhaps on the crucifixion scene for those how love formality…. and one based on the Last Supper scene in which there was the first consecration yet it happened amidst interpersonal communication and closeness.

Twice blessed, I don’t think we need a formal and an informal Mass. It’s been tried — call the first “traditional” and the second “contemporary” — and the result is division of the parish into self-selecting ghettos based on taste and temperament, and a creeping emphasis on the entertainment value of the Mass rather than the meaning inherent to it. But you’re onto something.

The Mass is not only worship but instruction (and vice versa). Lex orandi lex credendi and all that. When we worship as if the event is of utmost importance, it evidences our belief in the same. When we worship as if our neighbor is an irritation and a distraction, it evidences our attitude likewise. So there is a “vertical” lesson imparted when those who are extroverts outside the nave put aside the backslapping bonhomie before God and give Him worshipful silence; there is also a “horizontal” lesson that occurs when introverts transcend their solitary instincts and show genuine warmth to their neighbors (“see how they love one another”).

In Baptism, and even more specifically in Confirmation, Catholics are called to go out to the world to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. But beyond that – or because of that – we are called, specifically and personally. I think it is the failure to discern this call – and with it to discern God’s personal and infinite love – which allows many to so easily drift away from the Church. Simply put, they do not feel that they are needed. Creating needs around the parish – committees, programs, lay “ministries”, etc. – exacerbates the problem, for fundamentally these needs, while real, do not arise from a personal call. Even the most dedicated musician or prepared reader or generous and well-educated catechist discovers that if and when they are gone, life in the parish and the world goes on pretty much as it did before.

But answering the call to marriage changes the world. God has allowed my wife and I to participate in leading each other to heaven. By the fruit of our love and His grace, our son exists. And by His grace hopefully we make visible the love of the Trinity through the sign of our fidelity.

Answering the call to the priesthood changes the world. The sinner is reconciled to God when he confesses to that priest. That priest celebrates the Mass, and our salvation is made present right in our midst. The dying woman is annointed in preparation for her final journey.

Answering the call to religious life changes the world. Silent prayers offered in secret on behalf of so many who have forgotten to pray. The celibate witness of waiting for the coming of the Lord – He is worth waiting for.

Answering the call to the single life changes the world. The freedom to be avialable as a friend and confidant to the sorrowful. That same celibate witness of joy in the companionship of the Lord.

I think the real struggle for the Church, not just since Vatican II, is to form all her people to really discern God’s personal and loving call. No doubt good liturgy, orthodox education, and above all grace, are necessary to hear and answer the call. But if the Church is not louly echoing the silent call of God in each of our hearts, how easy it is to think “It doesn’t really matter – I’m not needed.”

I am not saying the liturgy is not central for Catholics. Of course, Catholics interested in the liturgy look upon it as a means of evangelization. What I’m asking is the obvious question: are the 15 million US Catholics who left the liturgical Church for non-liturgical evangelicalism really that connected to the liturgy? Or did they leave because other things were more important to them and other needs unaddressed?

I’m sorry but I don’t believe that most people leave for evangelicalism or Pentecostalism because they are *really* looking for the solemnity of the traditional Mass.

All I’m trying to say is could we listen to them tell us why they left? I do wish someone would do a huge survey of Catholics who left for evangelicalism. It would do us all a great service.

I do know that many leave for reasons that are not related to liturgy or catechesis. There are other critical dimensions to the Christian life that our discussions are not addressing seriously but must address if we hope to win so many millions back.

And Terry – I was born and raised an evangelical, have a very broad evangelical experience, studied with some of the foremost leaders in the evangelical world, and stayed in touch ever since. I have read the books. The problem is that Catholics, who have very little experience of the vastness, complexity, or immense diversity of evangelical institutions, organizations, and initiatives read a single article or books and leap to the most startling conclusions.

You wrote:

“Secondly, what you fail to factor into your equation is the vast and intense reality of movement within evangelicalism, between churches and groups.

I am deeply familiar with it – I have lived it and I have read their research.

Sure it is causing them worry – because they take very seriously and are infinitely more pro-active than we are about the need to evangelize and foster mature Christians. The level of the conversation and expectation among many evangelicals in this area is so far advanced, so much sophisticated than anything I encounter in the Catholic world that it is plain embarrassing.

Watching Catholics talk about evangelizing lapsed Catholics is like watching a bunch of Baptists trying to sight-read their way through the Easter Vigil or a bunch of fundamentalists work their way through St. Thomas Aquinas. Funny. And painful.

“They admit it freely – they are getting people, but they are not keeping them. They are not keeping the youth, at all, they are not keeping the young adults and many are not even attempting to serve the elderly.”

“They are not keeping the youth at all?” Right.

I’ll just bop on down to Young Life (headquartered here in town) where all the staff should be cleaning out their desks about now to commiserate.

Not keeping the young adults? I’ll be sure and let the Navigators (also headquartered in town) know because their thousands of young adult staff haven’t heard it yet. And then I’ll drop by our dozens of local mega-churches and our many mission agencies and Focus on the Family and help them all close shop. It’s the least I can do now that you’ve assured me that the whole evangelical enterprise is collapsing.

We don’t get it. When someone like Willowcreek publicly admits that that they have failed to move a large proportion of their people beyond a certain maturity level, we do not grasp how much, much higher their real life pastoral expectations are then ours. What they consider to be a failure would rank as a spectacular pastoral success of the first order in the Catholic world. They are worried that their people aren’t passing their SATs and we are hooting at them while most of our own people don’t know their spiritual alphabet.

No worries. No reason to ask new questions or think new thoughts. If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve gotten so far. The 8:1 ratio. Everything’s just fine.

And now I’m giving up all comments on anything liturgical for the rest of Lent, Eastertide, ordinary time, Advent and Christmas – not to mention the rest of my life. I always regret it.

You said What if those 8 Catholics left us because they actually wanted and needed what evangelicals do very well and we do rather poorly? a couple of times, but never really explained what evangelicals do well that Catholics do poorly. Was it this:

A Christian community that was small enough to actually know who they were and would notice when they showed up – a stranger. What if they desperately needed to experience the transforming power of God in their life or their family’s life? What if they love and find profoundly reverent and moving worship that is full of emotion and movement and spontaneity? What if they needed to be supported and formed by a local community marked by a genuine culture of discipleship?

Could you elaborate? I confess to not knowing much about evangelicals and how their churches operate. How do evangelicals (I would love a good working definition of the term) help people “experience the transforming power of God in their life or their family’s life?” How does it relate to the touchy-feely catechesis that is so common here in LA and elsewhere?

In my experience, I see many Catholics leave because no one’s ever made the case for “Why be Catholic?” Heck, in our RCIA we don’t even make the case for being Catholic; you should see the nonsense materials we have to work with. We are just supposed to affirm people and help them on their “journey.” But if you don’t talk about the salvation of souls or Heaven and Hell, how will they know where the journey’s going to end?

“We need two radically different psychological types of Masses….one based perhaps on the crucifixion scene for those how love formality…. and one based on the Last Supper scene in which there was the first consecration yet it happened amidst interpersonal communication and closeness.”

I think Terry’s points are right on the money. The idea that those who are interested in liturgy and see it as central are only interested in doctrine or Gregorian chant is a fallacy. Those who lived before Vatican II were not enchanted by the liturgy because they necessarily understood the fine points of doctrine or Gregorian chant. Liturgy was their life – it was Catholicism. The things that evangelicals do well, whatever they are, are not part of Catholicism. Just being part of a parachurch movement, disregarding the liturgy and its beauty, which reflects the Beauty of God (and Beauty is one of the names of God), disrgarding Catholic ecclesiology, relativizing the sacraments, in favor of transient fervor, is not Catholic. Pope Benedict made this point in Deus caritas est. Evangelicalism is a symptom of people’s inability to commit to something profound, which takes the work of a lifetime, which is to seek the face of God. Philo of Alexandria made the point that no matter how ultimately unsuccessful one is in this endeavor, it is worth all the work it takes.

I am an evangelical and also an academic. I have several friends who have become Catholic from evangelicalism, and I know a lot of people who were raised Catholic and became evangelical. The profiles of the two types are extremely consistent.

Very consistently, evangelicals who become Catholic are very intelligent and historically informed. They reason their way into Catholicism, often with not much input from Catholics. They do this by observing the weaknesses of the evangelicalism they know—the thin ecclesiology, the problem of authority, the lack of roots in tradition and history—and figuring out that Catholicism is the antidote. Such conversions are not, in any case I know of, products of outreach on the part of Catholics.

Very consistently, Catholics who become evangelicals will tell you that they spent thirty years in the Catholic church and never heard the gospel. They were given a set of rules to follow, and told either (a) that their eternal destiny depended on how they followed the rules, or (b) that because they were Catholics they were good to go. (A generational difference.) Then they met an evangelical, who intentionally made friends with them, told them that Jesus could turn their life around, invited them to a church and a small group Bible study. They learned how to look for answers to their problems in life in the Bible. They got help with raising their children, or their marriage, or their problems at work. They learned how to pray without a text in front of them or memorized. And they learned how to repeat the process with their friends and neighbors.

The reason there is an 8:1 ratio is that the number of highly intelligent, historically informed evangelicals is rather small, and the number of unevangelized cradle Catholics is rather large. For example: at the Presbyterian church I now attend, the entire deacon board was baptized Catholic.

Yes, Tom.
We have that at our parish… (5) years ago our stanchly traditional parish was, by the grace of God and the foresite of our bishop, merged with a Catholic Charismatic Community in town. To make a long story short, (the story is still being written) we now have both traditional masses and contemporary/charismatic masses…and many of the traditionalists have come to the more demonstrative mass and vise versa.
Don’t get the wrong impression…we’re still human and there have been a few conflicts, but for the most part we have/are becoming a fabulous community of people on fire for Jesus.

It occured to me why I did not count myself among those who left the faith of their youth. Having wanted to be Catholic since childhood and the Lutheran Church as the middle-ground to which my parents would acquiesce, I think I consider(ed) my conversion to be the ‘perfecting’ of a childhood aspiration…

Thank you for making the point so clearly. Your experience exactly coincides with mine. The entire deacon board was baptized Catholic? Wow.

Reminds me of the oncology unit I worked on where you could have easily gotten the impression that you needed to be a lapsed Catholic to get hired.

Doug:

How wonderful to hear that it can be done and that there is room for the full breadth of valid Catholicism in a single parish.

Paul Murane, you wrote:

Could you elaborate? I confess to not knowing much about evangelicals and how their churches operate. How do evangelicals (I would love a good working definition of the term) help people “experience the transforming power of God in their life or their family’s life?” How does it relate to the touchy-feely catechesis that is so common here in LA and elsewhere?

Good question. Here’s the deal. Everything in the Christian life isn’t about the intellect and content. Catechesis is only one part of the whole. Catechesis is not formation. Formation enables a man or woman to integrate his or her lived faith, intellect, feelings, relationship, and work into a whole life devoted to Christ.

For many people, relationship are the center of the universe – the center of their relationship with God, all meaning, all purpose – the point of everything! That’s where they start in any spiritual journey as well.

So they simply can’t survive on the combination of an impersonal formal liturgy and a non-existant community life. They leave for places where people actually know their name and notice when they show up.

Some people need to experience the healing and transforming *power* of God in their lives. Their marriage is failing or their child is an addict or they struggle with depression or a life-threatening disease or are about to become homeless. They need to see God heal or transform their heart or give them hope or experience being actually cared about and for by a Christian community. They need to see something really different about Christians in order to trust them. They need to see – not just beautiful liturgical symbols of grace but evidence of that grace really transforming a real human being’s life.

Transforming spiritual experience is not the same as being “touchy-feely”. Most of the post-V2 pablum that I’ve encountered is so emotionally bland, gutless, passionless and powerless as to be embarrassing. It has neither wit or wisdom to recommend it and usually leaves people’s lives untouched. Only the most repressed ecclesial bureaucrat could imagine that it would be gripping.

Transforming spiritual experience is St Paul (not exactly a passionless man) saying “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” with a complete human and lived integrity that others recognize immediately. Here is a man who has *lived* it to the depths, with his whole being – and is speaking from a existential depth that is utterly compelling.

Some people (and many cultures) are simply exuberant and openly emotional by nature. They process by emoting. They connect by emoting. They relate to God by emoting. They can’t worship without emotion and without contact with the feelings of others. They may give more reserved people hives but they are part of the body of Christ too. There has to be room for them too in our worship, in our community, in our vision of what it means to be Catholic. Or they will go to places where there is room.

The idea that there are disparate ways in which we, as Catholics, evidence our Catholicity, is part of the problem. The Mass has always been the central way in which Catholics have proclaimed themselves as Catholics. The fact that in the last 50 years the NO has been celebrated in diverse ways is an aberration. This is unlike the various rites that characterized the Middle Ages, all of which were celebrated with solemnity and reverence. The NO has had no parameters. This is what Benedict XVI is trying to combat. His distinction between the TLM and the NO is juridical. He is trying to create a synergy between the NO and the TLM to make the NO more reverent and to make it more like the TLM (watch a Papal Mass sometime. Benedict is celebrating the NO, but the ambience is very much that of the TLM). The Pope very much desires a unified celebration for Catholics, one that harks back to Catholic tradition, not something for everyone, based on their feelings or what turns them on. The Catholic tradition is what is operative here, not emotion or spontaneity or praise-and-worship music.

Interesting that only one person mentioned the sexual abuse problem. I think that this is the tip of an iceberg that is destroying the credibility of the Church leadership. Today the Church leadership tells us that several actions are so grave and evil that they cannot be tolerated, namely abortion, but same sex marriages and homosexual acts are also mentioned. BUT, this was not a problem when it was pediphile priests and the bishops moved them around in secrecy. Tome, at lest, there seems to be a loss of credibility there.

And now we have a bishop that takes money from the Society for the Propagation of Faith to spend on vestments. But when caught says it is all right since he has found a donor to replace the money. And if he hadn’t been caught? I believe that his is called embezelment. Yes, hopefully this is not a common ocurrence, but since I have heard of no bishop condemning such action I suspect that it is far more common than I had hoped. I would also add the problem of bishops that preach the Catholic social doctrine until in comes time to deal with labor unions in their own schools, then that social teaching doesn’t apply. What other Church teachings don’t apply when it effects a bishop, or by extension, me and my family? What do you expect the average Catholic to do? Am I to follow Church teachings that even our leaders do not believe in?

In the end it is the Eucharist that keeps me in the Church, it is only here that I can truly receive Christ. But I really wonder, how many of our leaders truly believe in the Real Presence, and I don’t believe that someone can teach such a doctrine unless they really believe it themselves. And I think that if most of our leaders did believe in what they are trying to teach, you would see a far different Church.

And everything you said Amy, thanks for being here and having the courage to take on such subjects.

Incidentally, as one who recommended reverent liturgies as a form of evangelization, I grew up post-Vatican II and have never even been to a traditional Latin Mass. I have read Spirit of the Liturgy though and find some aspects of what I know of the Latin Mass to be appealing.

However, when I speak of reverence, I mean this:

* Care in following the rubrics — this is the prayer of the Church, not the priest’s private prayer that he happens to share with the congregation.

* Proclaiming the readings and Gospels with emotion, rather than reading it with all the excitement of one who is just reading it for the record.

* A homily that inspires one to deeper conversion, which means it will often be challenging and a little uncomfortable.

*Hymns that have meaning and are appropriate for the time in the Mass where it is sung.

* A congregation that participates with joy and excitement in the responses and singing, is attentive, and is prayerfully silent before Mass to prepare for the worship that is about to take place and to acknowledge the presence of Christ in the tabernacle. As previously mentioned, this isn’t an excuse for introverts to put on blinders and not give a smile and brief welcome to those who sit around them, but neither does it mean refraining from carrying on discussions about the past week’s events with those around you. It means putting first things first.

“What do you expect the average Catholic to do? Am I to follow Church teachings that even our leaders do not believe in?” ~ 55 Mike L~

YES!
WHY? because…

…”I don’t believe that someone can teach such a doctrine unless they really believe it themselves”~ 55 Mike L~

I have experienced ALL of these reasons for the exodus in the Catholic Church and more…I agree with all of them – they are all valid. But are we not called upon to rise above them; place the law firmly into our hearts and transcend the law and teach others to do the same. I understand fully that these leaders down through the centuries were supposed to do just that – lead us to the Kingdom of God – and they are still trying to do that. BUT THEY ARE NOT GOD…
THEY ARE HUMAN… and are SINNERS…just like ME…
The church is a hospital for SINNERS not a museum for saints (not my own; I wish I could remember who said it)
Let us all take these daily experiences as opportunities to be Christ-like.

Mike L…you and the Father are certainly correct about the sex abuse matter. I think most of us were simply attuned to the issue of not just Catholics leaving but those who were leaving not from bitterness but specifically for something that is missing, and that requires religious work, and therefore is not an act of spiritual laziness as in the cases of those who drop away to non spiritual venues out of bitterness toward all clergy or so as to avoid all forms of spiritual work.

I would like to know when evangelicalism became the standard and norm by which Catholicism should be measured? When did the contemplative interiority that has been the hallmark of Catholicism suddenly become disgraced and short of the mark? I know it’s not all due to evangelicalism; part of it is the influence of contemporary society (and that influence is part and parcel of evangelicalism as well, it seems to me). But still, all of a sudden, Catholicism is being asked to become something it’s not: to abandon its synthesis of faith and reason and focus on the amorphousness of zeal and emotion in order to accommodate seekers who are after something they can’t even articulate. Often, it’s not God.

The idea that Catholics don’t know their spiritual alphabet is condescending and arrogant and very wide of the mark. It’s also the fruit of a very different hermeneutic, which emphasizes different “spiritual” things and looks for different aspects of whatever constitutes a spiritual life in evangelicalism. The idea that Catholicism is infinitely malleable is also wide of the mark. There are parameters and history and tradition. Not every repristinatory thought or desire can or should be accommodated and some strains of evangelicalicalism are very repristinatory. But Catholicism is not; it has developed. We don’t read the Bible literally; why should we behave that way?

And who says that a dignified liturgy is not transformative or healing? The notion that there are two classes of people: “us,” the ones who understand doctrinal niceties, and “them,” the ones who exist on emotion, is just so much blather. It’s also classist and condescending. ALL Catholics went to the same Mass before Vatican II. Some were exuberant and some were not. But the Bible says: “Be still and know that I am God.” Under that rubric, those at megachurches and other noisy venues will never realize God.

Thank you Heath and Sherry for pointing out why I and many other Catholics have left the Catholic Church. My longng to be a better disciple of Christ, to have Him change my life, to worship with a joyful attitude, to obey Him out of love and a changed heart, and not out of fear and threats, and to have a caring , supportive community for encouragement in my faith , were my reasons for becoming a Protestant. Until I attended a Protestant church, I never knew a person could relate to God in this manner. Love, joy and peace entered my life in a way that I had never imagined possible, and I give thanks to the Holy Spirit for leading me .

Thanks also for demonstrating that for many, our leaving was not a result of disagreement with moral teachings, but rather an honest search for a Biblically orthodox, spirit- filled community where we could grow in our faith.

Is that what you think of traditional Catholic liturgy? I mean, the liturgy of the Church as prayed for at least 1500 years (if you go from the dates of our earliest sacramentaries, so we can probably assume the formalization occured earlier. Hence the “at least.”)

Because I really don’t see an alternative way of intepreting this.

I don’t know why liturgy is such a huge blind spot for you. Formal liturgy is not impersonal. It is an intimate union with the person of Christ, united intimately with those around you in the pews, as well as every CAtholic around the world and through time, as we all stand in the presence of Jesus at the Last Supper, at the Cross, deep in the mystery.

Everything about the liturgy is designed or has, if you will, organically developed to communicate that truth – the truth of that intimate presence and communion with God and others.

Yes, it can be done poorly and communicate something different. But emotion-laden worship has its own countless problems as well.

But I’m going to stick by my perceptions here that you really are not grasping what Catholic liturgy is all about. You really, really need to read The Spirit of the Liturgy.

When you give workshops at St. Mary’s in Greenville or Atonement in San Antonio (or Houston?) do you lecture the priests there about their meticulous attention to the details of liturgy, telling them that they’re missing the boat with the impersonal formalism?

“…to obey Him out of love and a changed heart, and not out of fear and threats…”

Elizabeth, I’m sorry you left. Can you be more specific as to what you experienced that caused fear or was threatening, or that lead you to believe others obeyed God because of that and not out of love?

And how was your Protestant church instrumental in changing your attitude towards worship?

It’s interesting because all the reasons you list for leaving the Catholic Church also happen to be some of the reasons why I stay. Perhaps it depends on the people in the parish or the Protestant church you went to.

For me, the question would come down to this. If Christ established one Church and wanted all to be saved through that one Church, how do I know if I am in that one Church? Basing the answer on my experiences, which could widely differ from parish to parish, Protestant church to Protestant church, and individual to individual does not seem like an objective way to answer that question.

Not to come off as a blunt latecomer to the discussion, but Terry, doesn’t your last response pretty much demonstrate the “intellectual” vs “emotional” issues discussed earlier? Look at what you wrote applied generically to evangelism – you meet someone that you think doesn’t understand the importance of the liturgy, and your first reaction is “go read a book and understand.” That’s great for the 1 coming in because that’s what they’re hungry for, but it’s a poor approach for the 8 that are leaving.

Nobody here is disputing the importance of the liturgy to evangelism. It’s absolutely critical. That doesn’t change the fact that, regardless what it IS, as a whole the Church in a US does a piss-poor job of communicating that as an experience. The term “impersonal formal liturgy” is precisely what people see – that’s not an attack on the liturgy, that’s an indictment of what we’ve done as a Church.

You’re right, if an individual truly has an experience of liturgy as “…an intimate union with the person of Christ, united intimately with those around you in the pews, as well as every CAtholic around the world and through time, as we all stand in the presence of Jesus at the Last Supper, at the Cross, deep in the mystery…” then it’s impossible to even imagine going elsewhere. The question isn’t is liturgy important or not, it’s why are we doing such an incredibly terrible job at providing that experience? Why are those 8 Catholics finding that experience elsewhere and not in the Church?

How many of us on this thread have family members who have left the Catholic Church? Have we ever asked them why they left?

In my own case, my family left the Catholic Church in the late 60’s in the wake of Vatican II. It wasn’t because the Mass was in English or because the priest was facing the people instead of the altar, though. My grandmother had been divorced, and felt alienated from the Catholic Church. She found welcome in the local Assembly of God church, where she had a conversion experience that changed her life. My mother later had a similar conversion experience, and eventually joined my grandmother’s church.

It was in the charismatic/pentecostal churches that I first encountered Christ as a young child. Later, though, my mother enrolled me in the local parochial school which was my first exposure to the Catholic faith. The beauty and quiet dignity of the Mass (yes, even the Novus Ordo) drew me in, as I could sense the contrast with the more exhuberant services I normally attended. Once exposed to the Eucharist, I began to have a hunger and longing for it. As I was interested in history, the unchanging aspects of the Mass were a powerful draw to me as well.

My point here is that people often leave the Church for sociological reasons, such as divorce/remarriage, as well as for more spiritual reasons – a deep conversion experience in an evangelical church. Often they begin to attend other churches because someone invites them (I could be wrong, but I don’t think many cradle Catholics wander into a Baptist church entirely on their own!).

For their part, evangelicals know what they believe and why it matters, and they are motivated by a sincere concern for the souls and well-being of those they seek to evangelize. They truly want to share the “Good News” that has made such an impact on their lives, and they want to share this out of charity. We can learn much from this.

And I as a Catholic know what I believe and why it matters. BTW, there are plenty of evangelicals who have no idea why they are there or why any of it matters. They, too, have been brought to services or meetings by their friends or parents or whoever.

The notion that every evangelical is perfectly versed in his or her faith and that all of them are “on fire” for Christ is belied by the many, many books, articles, and online reports from evangelical pastors who say the opposite. And how can a megachurch be anything BUT impersonal? I don’t doubt that those who evangelize are well-meaning and sincere in their efforts, but please don’t put forth the mythology that every single evangelical is a perfect exponent of what it means to be a “Christian” or that every single encounter is one of total Christian giving.

I think a lot of what’s going on is the notion that evangelicalism is free of the standards, rules, etc. that Catholics are criticized about every time this topic opens up. Pope Benedict says that the Church is a positive option every time he goes out, but apparently it’s not enough. Of course, there have to be standards and parameters and some sorts of criteria, but in this age where one should do exactly what one wants to, evangelicalism is the preferred option, but anyone can hang out a shingle and call oneself a minister and preach and heal and perform miracles. And none of it is subject to scrutiny (other than tax matters). And, of course, emotion is always favored over intellect and will (just check the sexual standards in the current climate).

But go reread Deus caritas est. And read what the Pope says about the intellect and the will. And read what he says about love. And then tell me that the Catholic Church is really so forbidding and cold and evangelicalism is so warm and inviting.

A brief word from God on emotional liturgy in His inspired word….(the timbrel was percussive):

Psa 149:1 ¶ Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, [and] his praise in the congregation of saints….
Psa 149:3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.

Psa 150:4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

Outside of the above liturgy, David was perhaps more emotional:

2Sa 6:14 And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.

What a good thread. I agree with Amy that the Church needs to defend herself and with the others here who point to adult catechism. I think every cradle Catholic has to make a transition from the faith they had as children to an adult faith. Support is necessary not just as teenagers but as young adults in college or the working world where temptations will be especially strong. Part of that developing faith is a faith in the Church itself and an exploration of it’s great depth. The Church has a great wealth of historical material to tap into.

I am describing the initial reactions of the hundreds of evangelicals I know, who, without any liturgical background at all and accustomed to a very different understanding and practice of worship, would regard a good deal of what Catholics consider to be normative to be cold and impersonal.

Catholics who choose to leave the Church and spend time (sometimes many years) in an entirely different community presumably go there because they choose to. If they were attached to the liturgy, they’d have come back as soon as they realized the deep difference in the understanding of worship.

It would seem most unlikely that their general understanding of what worship is doesn’t change gradually through their exposure to this very different style. However, unlikely it may seem, many might actually really like it and find it spiritually nourishing.

If they didn’t like evangelical worship – they all know where to find us. (There’s a branch office near you.( If they choose to stay and take on an evangelical identity, that says something we need to hear – if we want them to come back.

And just a note: I usually attend a different Mass in a different parish or diocese every weekend. A fair estimate so far would be 500 different parishes at at least in 7 languages (including Latin on a number of occasions), several different rites and the entire spectrum from St Peters to bland run of the mill NO parishes to the full blown traditionalist hotbeds and liberal hotbeds.

I know that this is inconceivable to many here but I go where I’m asked and I take what I’m given. No one asks me my opinion about the liturgy – ever – and I wouldn’t dream of offering it. The idea of me lecturing Fr. Newman at St. Mary’s or the pastor of Our Lady of Walsingham on liturgy is too ridiculous for words.

I have NO agendas or strong preferences in this area. I welcomed the traditional Mass to my own parish although it isn’t what I would choose to attend on a regular basis. It’s the Mass. I trust the Church. I try to pray wherever I am.

And this isn’t about me anyway.

It is about listening to what 15 million US Catholics are telling us when they leave for the evangelical world. They aren’t there *accidently* nor did they leave us *accidently*. They had reasons and did it deliberately. If we hope to change their minds, we need to find out what those reasons were and ask ourselves how we address them better.

Unless, of course, we really don’t want them back and we’re just ducky with the 8:1 ratio.

I’ve gotta say first that I don’t like your implication that “If you don’t agree with my analysis you’re not committed to evangelization and keeping Catholics Catholic.”

There is more than one way to see this.

And I think your analysis suffers from not taking into account the bigger picture. What I mean is that you cannot examine the 15 million Catholics who have left for evangelical churches without also examining the millions and millions of evangelicals who have left Mainline Protestantl Group A for MegaChurch B for Seeker Church C. As Amy pointed out above, Protestants are switching demoninational and group loyalties at a fierce rate, without even taking the Catholic factor into consideration.

Of course Catholics need to evangelize better. Of course Catholics need to catechize better and build better parishes and other groups and apostolates.

You are correct and admirable in trying to meet the Catholic aspect of this problem but you are incorrect on seeing this as only a Catholic problem and continually slamming traditional Catholic sensibilities in the process. If it is even a problem, and not just a consequence of modern life.

Never once have I ever thought or stated that I thought it was a Catholic only problem.

But the Catholic side of it happens to be my province and area of expertise and the topic of conversation here.

Evangelicals will evangelize anything that moves but *why* people from other backgrounds respond as they do (or don’t) does vary depending upon the background. I wouldn’t presume to talk about why secular Jews or Unitarians or liberal Congregationalists are drawn into the evangelical world.

Never once in this conversation have I “slammed traditional Catholic sensibilities”.

I am asking why 15 million of our own have left to go to a place where the sensibilities are enormously different (and in many ways contrary to those that traditional Catholic cherish) and what we need to learn from that. Clearly, something drew them there rather than into the “unaffiliated” category where they could just as easily have gone.

The liturgy is only going to become more normative and orthodox in the future. It’s not going to become more “seeker-friendly” or emotional – that’s not really in the cards, given the derestriction of the TLM and the burgeoning orthodox sensibilities of the younger generation (the Millennials). Even spectacles like the charismatics Masses at Steubenville are being given competition from the TLM Masses in the neighborhood. Therefore, for those who are in the faith for the emotion and the spectacle and the circus-like atmosphere, it doesn’t seem as though there’s going to be much for them in the future (near or distant).

The point is that the liturgy isn’t about us – it’s about God. And God deserves more than something that celebrates us.

In the useful collection of essays, The Marks of the Body of Christ, edited by Carl Braaten & Robert Jenson, in an article on discipleship, William Abraham remarks:

It is surely one of the enduring puzzles of the contemporary American church that so many people wander in and out of its communities and buildings without ever finding their feet as healthy disciples of Jesus Christ. What does this signify? Does it mean that the church forfeits its right to be seen as a church? If discipleship is a mark of the church, then it would appear that we must answer this in the affermative. This is a startling proposal within most of mainline Protestantism down through its history. We immediately associate discipleship as a mark of the church with Anabaptism and other like-minded groups; and these we naturally think of as sectarian bodies committed to a conception of the church as a voluntary association of true believers. Our list of the marks of the church rarely stretches that far. We think of either two marks of the church: the preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacraments; or four marks of the church: unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. In neither of these cases do we think naturally of discipleship. To bring in discipleship would draw us away from the idea of the church as a thoroughly mixed bag of believers and unbelievers, of saints and sinners, of wheat and chaff, who can only be separated at the last judgment.

This conversation has concentrated on why Catholics leave to become fervent Evangelicals. But what of those who go to a liberal mainstream denomination either over a marriage issue or disagreement with Catholic sexual morality, etc? We can’t change our beliefs to accomodate them. Some may have been poorly informed as to the bases of those beliefs others really disagree despite accurate knowledge. What about Catholics who drift away from religion entirely, often because it would interfere with their sex lives?

I spent decades in the science fiction community, which is full of lapsed Catholics. In addition to “pelvic issues” and “the problem of pain”, there was a general hostility to authority and a strong tendency to view all religion (except perhaps Paganism or Eastern mysticism) as bigoted hypocracy. I’m ashamed to say that I had no positive effect whatsoever on my friends’ views. My explanations or suggestions generally made others more negative than before. I never saw any of this vaunted hunger for faith/meaning. People like Issac Asimov were about as unevangelizable as it’s possible to be.

You may be going by the anecdotal or by your subjective hopes for your remarks on the Millenial Catholics….according to the below they are so pro abortion, it is a way worse stat than we are discussing here….if not the worst stat of all that applies to millenial Catholics…

“Only 44 percent of pre-Vatican II Catholics say you can be a good Catholic without agreeing with the church’s opposition to abortion. That figure rises to 56 percent among Vatican II Catholics, 59 percent among post-Vatican II Catholics, and 89 percent among Millennials.”

I’m trying to approach this with charity, but can’t you see how your positions give off a complete vibe of contempt for people that aren’t at the same position in their faith as you are? I don’t think, objectively, anything that you’re saying is wrong – but if I’m someone trying to figure out God’s call, and I’m confronted with your apparent all-or-nothing, take it or leave it vibe, then no wonder I’m going to be driven to pursue my faith elsewhere.

Back to the thread in general, one other thing I’d like to caution is focusing too much on the 8:1 numbers we’re discussing – that’s assuming someone already with a basis in their faith wanting something else/more/deeper than their finding in evangelicalism. How bad are our unchurched/weekly churched incoming numbers? My expectation is that their practically non-existent. With some of the hardcore intellectualism approaches that we see, it’s almost as if some want to outsource the initial basic conversion to the Gospel to other denominations, and then start skimming the cream from the top as they go deeper in faith. Needless to say, going down that path will lead to some dangerous places. Perhaps that’s an overly cynical look, but I’m not completely convinced it’s off base.

I don’t read anybody in this thread as saying “we need to become more Protestant/less Catholic to get these people back.” It’s more saying hey, some of these places are doing things that work, can the same happen for us – call it the old “test everything, keep what is good” theory. Attempting to deny the facts is ignorant – some of these places are doing some things that are pulling lots of people in, including lots of Catholics. The fact that it’s happening DESPITE all of the intellectual reasons put forth in these comments means that, as a Church, we’re doing something wrong.

John E, without getting into an apologetics discussion, what I meant about obedience being motivated by fear was that as a Catholic, there was always the sense that if you sinned, and got hit by a bus before making it to confession, you were going straight to Hell. In the pre-Vatican II days in which I was raised, we were told it was a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday. The nuns at my school said that my Protestant friends were going to Hell. Catholics were ( and still are as far as I know) taught that there is no assurance of salvation – we just have to hope it happens and hope that we’re good enough. I was never inspired to obey God out of love and gratitude for His sacrifice on the cross for me. Instead, the emphasis was on what my sins did to Jesus, and how I needed to pay God back ( which of course, we simply cannot do). That creates a never ending anxiety that one has not “done enough”.

As far as worship goes, which you asked about, there is much more of an atmosphere of joy in the Protestant churches I’ve been in. The music is much better, and people sing with gusto. The sermons are inspiring and uplifting, and actually have some application to my life. People love and care about each other, and don’t race for the parking lot before the service is even over.

And now I will comment no more because I do not care to get into any arguments about how I really don’t know enough about Catholicism , etc. I believe God knows what is in my heart, and if I am better able to love and obey Him where I am, then that is where I must stay.

What you don’t seem to realize about the Catholic Church is that not everything is open for discussion and that includes the liturgy. It’s not like evangelicalism, where anything goes. The Pope wants a more reverent, traditional Mass and that’s what will happen. What happens is based on authority and not the transient “wants” of the people in the pews. And it has nothing to do with where they are in their faith or contempt or anything else. It has to do with the fact that the liturgy is regarded as a gift from God, something we of which we are stewards, not owners. The same is true of dogma.

What I dislike very much is the attitude that people don’t have to conform themselves to the Church, but the Church has to conform itself to whatever people want on any given day. The notion that “experience” (and whatever THAT means is pretty amorphous) is the basis for everything leads to anarchy and subjectivism.

Moreover, the “test the spirits” stuff is good in theory, but Catholics have been dealing with this for 50 years and from what I can tell, the Baby Boomers did a pretty poor job of testing. We’ve put up with every sort of innovation, with no reference to our own tradition. Now we have a Pope who wants to get us back on track and in conversation with that tradition and we still have back-benchers who protest that we need to make room for various “Catholicisms” in order to represents all the constituencies of which the Church is composed. Well, back in the early days of the Church there were just as many constituencies, they were held together by communio, but their various liturgies had one thing in common: they were dignified, venerable, and could hark back to apostolic foundations.

The notion that we have to judge our spirituality by the yardstick of evangelicalism when we have 2000 years of tradition from both East and West is completely foreign to me. Evangelicalism self-selects what it wants and disregards the rest. It has no self-sustaining tradition, nothing organic. Only in evangelicalism could scholars refer to Irenaeus of Lyons, talk about the development of the Trinity and never once refer to the baptismal creeds which were part and parcel of that development. So please understand if I’m less than sanguine about the value of their gifts to Catholicism.

The surprising thing was that the Pew survey found that relatively few Catholic go the liberal mainline Protestant route or other religion route. The 10% of American who have left the Catholic Church are split almost evenly between “gone evangelical” and “just gone” (unaffiliated with any religious group)

I left the Catholic church because it was full of Catholics like me. Born Catholic, raised Catholic, educated Catholic.

Never in 18 years was there a choice involved for me. I did what mom, dad, and grandparents had always done.

So at 18, I thought it would be a good idea to experiment. I stopped acting Catholic and did as I pleased. The result- not so great, so I turned back to faith, but not the Catholic faith.

What I found was an Evangelical church where every one of the thousands of members had freely chosen to participate. Everyone in the church is a first generation church member. Most everyone is excited to be there several times a week. Many give a full 10% of their income to the church, which has allowed the ministry to grow exponentially.

Theologically, the differences between my church and the Catholic church are not that significant. What’s different is the attitude and approach of the congregants. At my church, they are sold out to Christ, in the Catholic Church of my youth, my perception was that 80% were insincere like I was and just there to get their “ticket punched”.

Could it be that we need to keep the liturgy with all of its formality and reverence (whether any given individual would describe it as “impersonal” or “solemn”) AND further develop the lay movements that appeal to those unmet needs that all of us have.

It’s really not a mystery that a parish with Knights of Columbus and Legion of Mary might not fulfill the fellowship needs of everyone in its parish boundaries, is it?

Personally, we attend a parish with a somewhat dry, but definitely serious liturgical style. That’s great, but a human being needs more, so I attend a weekly men’s discussion group. My wife attends a semi-weekly women’s group. We go on retreats when possible. We try to travel for the semi-annual Eucharistic Congress in an adjacent state and occasional NET Masses for our kids in a nearby city. Someone else would come up with a different list of activities, but everyone needs something besides weekly/daily liturgy.

No, the answer isn’t “programs”, but it is to flesh out these lay apostolates, informal groups, and faith-based friendships that help all of us disciples live out our lay vocations.

Some folks have a mistaken zero-sum attitude, I think. There’s no good reason preventing participation in, say, a gregorian chant mass Sunday Morning, confession/mass/adoration Wednesday evening and small group discipleship meeting Friday night if one has sufficient inclination. Even if one lives in an area where Catholicism is as out of the mainstream as, say, rural Virginia. The particular mix available will vary but there’s a lot available if one searches.

Granted, many future ex-Catholics may not know about this since the cooperation and communication between different parishes is not what it could be.

You’re arguing against something that hasn’t been (to my view) argued in this thread – seriously, where has anyone said that the Church needs to change, that conforming ourselves to the truth isn’t necessary? To anyone that solidly practices their faith, you’re arguing the obvious (or to use a colloquial, you’re preaching to the choir).

Unfortunately, you’re approach seems to indicate that you have little to no experience with evangelism in a post-modern society. It is enough for you to say “this it what the Church says, so it’s enough.” If you approach the general population with that, you’ll find probably less than, say, a 1/4 of 1% (note: take that with a “76% of statistics are made up on the spot” grain of salt) that react positively to that. Do the vast majority of the people (myself included) here think that the Pope is wrong in his push on the liturgy? Absolutely not. But does random person x care that the Pope has a certain approach to the liturgy? Just as strongly, absolutley not. Why should they care? Religious fiat doesn’t work in a post-modern society. It’d make our jobs easier if it did – all we’d have to say is “this is what the Church says, believe it or you’re screwed” and our job would be done. Instead, we have a much harder job – we have to present Christ in a way that attracts people to that encounter, to that experience. And based on the numbers, in modern times Evangelicalism is presenting Christ to people in a far more attractive way. Whether or not that’s a good thing is irrelevant – it’s a reality.

The Church holds the fullness of the truth – there’s not a single person on this thread who will deny that. But what does that matter to someone who’s trying to figure out what truth is?

So let’s turn this around – if you reject that our Protestant brethren can give us some insight on to how to better our approach – step up and give us some concrete approaches that will stem this flood to evangelicalism. Give us something that will matter and be relevant to modern society. That is, unless you’re OK with the the outbound flow, a sort of “if you don’t believe this, then have at to whatever you want” approach.

I grew up in an evangelical (Plymouth Brethern) household. I am now Catholic. I am struck by how much of the whole evangelical ethos is really a manifestation of American culture as much as it is of Christian values per se. The way I see it to become more truly integrated into American culture is to become more culturally protestant. To view the issue in terms responses received to the query “why did you leave?” is perhaps too narrow of a focus.

My husband was raised Catholic, in a town where that was the overwhelming majority faith. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and when his mother tried to get the priest to help her, the priest told her to pray for a “quiet spirit,” because there was nothing he was going to do. Wife-beating was sickeningly common where Steve grew up, and drunkeness almost a competitive sport. The church ignored the former and, by sponsoring picnics and such, encouraged the latter. This permissiveness toward favored sins was coupled with a pathological obsession about the filthiness of sex, such that the priest berated the congregation about masturbation but, as stated above, never mentioned that beating the daylights out of one’s wife wasn’t such a great idea. Steve concluded that God had little to do with organized religion and hasn’t attended regularly since. Our sons are, like me, Presbyterian.

I converted to Catholicism in 1995 as a married adult, mother of 1. I came from a protestant background and was actually married to a divorced Catholic in the Presbyterian church in 1988. Several years, RCIA, an annulment and our family is definitely proud and Catholic. My kids unfortunately do not go to school with a lot of Catholics, but they enjoy their catechesis for the most part. I find in our Parish in Houston, that a large percentage of the volunteers in our parish are converts, not cradle Catholics. It is interesting to me because RCIA was not apologetics, but it was such a great road map for me. I think many cradle Catholics do not get, or perhaps retain at an early age, the Covenental truth of Catholicsm . The beauty of God’s promise fulfilled..Mary the Ark of the New Covenant, the significance of the last supper being the Passover Seder, the Mass we celebrate as God’s promise and covenant to us, through his Son’s sacrifice. Listen to the Old Testament readings and understand that our Faith is not only 2000 years old. Protestanism has become so New Testament oriented that these “non denominational feel good churches” advocate just repent and believe and all is OK. I think a return to the historical and mystical beauty of the Catholic faith would root many of the on the fence Catholics to stay. Too many cradle Catholics know what they are to believe, but not “Why”. My church is modern and has so many Mass times it is certainly hard to make an excuse for missing….I go for the Eucharist ALWAYS….but I wish there was at least one Mass that we could choose that was traditional liturgy or Latin. We have taken the kids to Latin Mass a couple of times and they were not fans..In churches with statues, candles lit and prominently available in the chapel, Communion at the rail and on the tongue ONLY, stained glass everywhere. They enjoyed the ritual, but were completely baffled with the Latin. ( At one Church in Galveston, my Husband of Irish extraction and the Priest could have been brothers especially with their newly shaven heads….lots of elbowing and staring going on….ha..my husband the priest….NOT)….I do very much feel there is too much of a Protestant feel to our services now and I would like to see the pendulum swing back to emphasize in some ways our differences, not our sameness.

This is a rather exciting read. So many Catholics, so much concern. Keep it up. The Roman church is the heartbeat of the western world. What everyone seems to forget is the nature of St. Peter. Hardly a model/Platonic Christian but passionate, determined, and ever rising from failures. I find the story of Christianity compelling: I am part of that story ( and wish often that I was not ).

I find the comments from Elizabeth and Tom Kelly quite interesting. Neither of them mentioned the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Neither mentioned whether or not they lost belief in the Real Presence or that they never believed it. I think this point is crucial. If one truly believed that Christ is present in the Eucharist, I sincerely believe that one could tolerate almost anything that is less than “holy” in Mother Church (with the exception of sexual abuse by priests because priests are the human beings who bring the Real Presence of Christ and their sins would destroy any faith or trust in what they do). Including banal liturgies, formal liturgies, impersonal liturgies, unexciting homilies, lack of community suppers, lack of youth groups, lack of scripture study, lack of praise and worship etc. etc. and one would return. With the utmost respect for all views expressed here, let me point this out: the millions of Chinese Catholics who suffered and continue to suffer persecution did/does not seek the Eucharist for community, learning the scripture or an emotional relationship with Jesus; they, like the early Christians, say, they cannot live without the Mass. They need the Eucharist to fulfil that hunger for a relationship with Christ, His Body and His Blood. I am convinced that many of our problems stem from a poorly formed priesthood and the decline of religious teaching orders. We need holy and talented priests who can teach the faith from the pulpit and relate it to the modern human condition, who are willing to teach the reality of the Real Presence of Christ in the Mass, and if better catechesis on these matters relating them to the Scriptural sources could be offered by well trained, orthodox catechists who can speak a modern idiom, I think we will go a long way to keeping the Church vibrant. Those who come to hear such priests and catechesists, they too will have their souls stamped with a hunger that will never leave them, they too will not be able to live without the Mass. And they will find their way back. Sad to say, most of them have never heard the Truth taught from the pulpit nor practiced at the Communion rails.

Nobody in this thread has yet quoted the research from back in the day (which is constantly quoted by Fr. Greeley in his sociological work) that, long before Vatican II, it was clear that the Catholic Church in America was constantly losing about 10%. And this went wayyyyy back before Vatican II. So it’s clearly not a new problem.

Someone earlier was talking about how there are liturgy websites, but no websites about how to visit the sick. Well, I try to find a cross-section of Catholic classics for folks, and I have had a deuce of a time finding any how-to books on visiting the sick, helping the poor, or so on. The traditional Catholic modality is just to say, “Dude, visit the sick. Oh, and consider them to be Jesus, and you’ll do okay.” The Bible, the Mass, and tons of devotional meditations and prayer instructions, instructions on how to die well, and theology books — those are what people aiming on doing good things are encouraged to study. Or you could get good ideas from reading saints’ lives, or studying the instructions in some order’s Rule. Or the priest gets you all excited with an exciting homily.

But there aren’t really any “how to feed the hungry” instructions to be had, as far as I can tell. I think we’re supposed to just do it, or just learn how to do it from those already helping.

Re: rules vs personal relationship —

The thing is, everything that’s about “personal relationship” (except the Sacraments and liturgy) falls under “private devotions”. And a lot of people have been spending the last fifty or sixty years trying to stamp out the horrrooooors of private devotions. People get the impression that church is all about rules and remote stuff because nobody ever takes them aside and encourages them to pray on their own, or get to know God better in some traditional way. That would be hoooorrrrrible private devotion.

Or, at this point, that would be something the teachers themselves have never heard about or done or experienced. Or they think that nobody else ever does anything like that, and they are the only weird ones who say hello to God in the morning or ask Mary for help on figuring out the kids. Either way, it would never occur to them that they can and should tell the kids about private devotion. Or private good works, for that matter.

Shrug. I don’t want to harp on this, but I honestly think it’s a chunk of the problem.

Re: Sandra Miesel’s comment

It’s true; a lot of people are spiritually hungry for everything but a religion worth taking seriously. And not everybody is someone who can evangelize with their charismatic attractiveness, or tell their wonderful story. I can maybe read you a poem about the beauty of the blue sky, but I can’t invite you to accept the blue sky. The sky is blue. It just is. It always has been, whether or not I’m blind to it, and I can’t talk like it’s not.

Everyone has different gifts; I know Sherry knows that. But then, Diana Wynne Jones knows perfectly well that different writers come up with stories in different ways. Yet when kids asked her how to write, she told them, “Just close your eyes and write what you see.” That’s great advice for her, and those whose imaginations work similarly. It’s horrible advice for people who don’t think that way and who realize she means exactly and literally what she says. If you challenged Jones, of course, she’d be quick to say that it was perfectly all right to compose stories in all sorts of different ways. But that’s not how she sounds.

So I know people don’t mean literally that we all have to run around doing things the same way. It just sounds that way; there’s no need to shudder or fall into depression because clearly, we’ll never make worthy Christians unless we can magically start being able to make friends and influence people. I know it’s not meant, but it still makes me want to slit my wrists. Somewhere there’s a happy medium between acknowledging a problem, and being certain that it’s all my personal fault. But that’s the other thing this discussion makes me feel.

I’m amazed that so many respond with more admonitions to better liturgy and a more careful study of Church documents. I’ve got an idea–lets have more greeters at Mass and form Bible Studies and then try to make parishioners feel guilty for not attending them. We can form diocesan or nation-wide committees that can offer recommendations for how to bring back lapsed Catholics to the Church. More documents can be published too. And more sermons about the duty of going to Church. Soon the 8 to 1 ratio will be reversed and all will be well.

I’m feeling a bit better this morning, and have realized what my problem with all this probably is.

Peer pressure. I’m allergic to it anyway, but particularly so in matters of religion. I was largely free of it as a kid, because… well, because nobody at school would deign to associate with me except to try to make me feel miserable, so I never felt any.

When I went to college, I ended up socializing (or fellowshipping or whatever) with various groups of evangelicals on campus. I thought we’d just do fun things or religious things. But instead, there was a lot of emphasis on being a certain style of Christian, worshipping and evangelizing and interpreting the Bible in a certain way and only a certain way, with all other ways viewed with suspicion or patronized. I could tell they meant well, so didn’t realize for quite a while that it was not a good idea to try to fit in with them.

I’m not saying folks are falling to peer pressure here, but some of the same language is coming up, and it’s messing me up and bringing back bad memories. So I will go away now and think about something else.

There are plenty of venues where you can work out your need for fellowship or outreach besides the Mass. And, if you’re Catholic, it does matter what the Pope says. The Catholic Church has the concept of authority. I know that many evangelicals are conforming themselves to a postmodern society, but Catholicism is inherently premodern, so it really doesn’t matter. The notion of “progressive” or “linear,” i.e., we keep progressing as we go from premodern to modern to postmodern is simply a human construct. It has no inherent validity other than that which we give it. That’s the whole fallacy in Protestantism in general and evangelicalism in particular. Luther thought he was gaining freedom by throwing away the authority of the Church and establishing his own. But all that did was to enslave him and future followers to the exigencies of the times (cf. Stanley Grenz trying to establish postmodern parameters for evangelical theology).

The point is not whether person X has a view on the liturgy. The point is that the liturgy is the worship of God. The other point is that the search for God, for ultimate Truth, is something that isn’t on the level of marketing clothing or popular culture. I don’t understand why everything, including faith, always has to bend to the lowest common denominator. And please tell me what in particular evangelicals do better than Catholics? It seems to me that the statistics are quite tendentious here. We’re comparing an ecclesial body, the Catholic Church, with disparate groups of people, who unite and then disperse, who have no lasting affiliation or binding creed or tradition. It is very difficult to take this comparison seriously. The Catholic Church may have its problems, but to compare it to groups of people who cannot even sustain themselves over even the period of a lifetime, let alone 2000 years, doesn’t seem to me to engender the idea that they can teach us anything in particular.

Yes John – the 8:1 is specifically about the Catholic/evangelical flow.

Pew says that nearly half of the 10% of Americans (just over 30 million) who have left the Church do so for evangelicalism, hence the 14 – 15 million figure for Catholics who have left specifically for evangelicalism.

Of course, one factor that hasn’t been discussed: At least 50% of adult converts cease to practice the faith within one year of their entry. (Cardinal Stafford told me he thought he was 70%!)

In any case, very large number of converts are gone very soon. I don’t think anyone knows where they go. What percentage are just non-practicing and what percentage actually move on to another religious tradition?

I feel like we’re talking past each other, because you’re still arguing points that nobody has stated. I’ll say it again – nobody has made the argument that the liturgy isn’t critical, isn’t central to the faith. And again, there’s not a single argument made that it doesn’t matter what Pope says if you’re Catholic. There’s not a single argument that the teaching authority of the Church is unnecessary. This is all fundamental, that any practicing Catholic looks at and says “well duh.”

But with all the non-practicing Catholics out there, let alone other Christians who we should be aiming to bring to the fullness of truth, NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Your answer seems to be “It matters. Deal with it.” There’s not a single person I know that would respond to that sort of “encouragement.”

I understand your desire to reject the idea of a post-modern society – but at the end of the day, that’s ostrich-like in it’s view of reality. This isn’t about CONFORMING to a post-modern culture – it’s about CONVERTING a post-modern culture. It’s the same thing the Church has always done – take the Gospel to a culture that doesn’t know it and infuse that culture with the Truth. But you have to understand and speak to that culture in order to convert it. You can’t expect a post-modern society to be converted by pre-modern religious fiat. It. Just. Doesn’t. Work.

Also, don’t you understand your “lowest common denominator” view is patently offensive? You’re separating yourself from the call to go out and spread the Gospel by implying “once you’ve reached a certain level of understanding, then we’ll talk.” Absolutely we should be about converting the lowest common denominator – because as sinners, we ARE the lowest common denominator of creation. We are constantly in need of conversion to the truth.

The facts are simple – for whatever reason, people are leaving the Church in droves for other bodies that they feel strengthens their faith. You can pretend it really doesn’t strengthen their faith, or that they really don’t “understand” what’s going on (btw – when did understanding become the standard for faith? Did I miss the verse that says “faith comes by understanding”?) – however you want to take it, it completely misses the point. At the end of the day, the Catholics that are leaving the Church perceive that these places are offering something that we’re not. The perception might be wrong, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And more elitism doesn’t change that perception.

So again, a challenge – how do you make what we know to be the truth valid and relevant to a culture that doesn’t want to accept it?

We’re “talking past each other” because we’re operating under different assumptions.

Look, at some point people either accept that the Church is what it is or they don’t. You appear to think that evangelical outlets strengthen people’s faith. Well, that’s an assertion that hasn’t been proven. Not if people are routinely moving around as much as they are. If faith is simply some disembodied, discarnate entity, anyway. And what constitutes faith?

Back in the day, people assumed that faith was something that one worked on for the long haul. You didn’t discard your Church when times got tough, or you were lonely, or thing weren’t to your liking. Today, when things don’t go your way, you just change your church or ecclesial body or seeker group like you change your clothing. And this is purely subjectivism.

As for understanding and faith. Of course, one begins with faith. But there’s no excuse for not attempting to understand one’s faith or deepen one’s faith. And faith begins with belief in some authority. St. Augustine said: “Crede, ut intelligas: Believe, in order that you may understand.” Don’t just believe and let it stop there. Use the intelligence God gave you. St. Anselm wrote: “Fides quaerens intellectum: Faith seeking understanding.” Faith, deepened, adult faith certainly does come by understanding. An adult faith, matured by reflection and prayer.

Not everything can be dumbed down. At some point, one has to assume that the other will make a good faith effort to do some work. If one is not willing to do some work in the arena of faith, all the cutesy programmes in the world won’t make a difference.

Converting a postmodern culture is a nice idea, but it won’t happen if one uses tools that are intrinsically part of post modern culture. That’s been the problem with evangelicalism from the beginning. In addition to the denatured content with which evangelicals work (the so-called “Great Tradition,” etc.), which is another reason why I wouldn’t necessarily take their suggestions, they predicate their Gospel message on marketing strategies, etc., which cheapens the very message they’re trying to proffer.

Let’s start with a basic question – is it possible for someone not identified as Catholic to have faith in Christ? I’m reading your basic premise to be that those of an Evangelical bent can’t have a real faith because of all the “issues” you list with Evangelicalism.

And again, you’re responding to an argument nobody has made – where is anyone implying that faith isn’t something that requires work? Where is anyone implying that it’s not a life-long journey? Where is anyone implying that church or denomination hopping is a good thing?

On the understanding question, you make it seem like one needs to be able to quote deep theological principles in order to have a “real adult faith.” Which brings another point – “real adult faith” is 1) COMPLETELY subjective (which you rail against) and 2) slightly not in line with the entire “faith like a child” that is, you know, mentioned in the Gospels. There’s nothing wrong with a deeply intellectual faith – again, that’s the direction I tend to come from. But this is not the direction that EVERYONE is supposed to come from, nor should they. The idea that you have to have some deep intellectual understanding to have a real faith is, again, pretty offensive.

Finally, you’re right, we are operating from different assumptions. You seem to be basing your assumptions that the Church has nothing to offer to someone who isn’t ready to make a commitment. Once a real commitment is made, then it’s easy – your pre-modern approach might be effective. I’m coming from the assumptions that before you get to the commitment, people need to be given WHY it’s important, WHY they should work, WHY it’s relevant to them. Evangelizing a post-modern culture REQUIRES that it be approached in that direction. As Amy has said, what we have here is a failure to make the case for Christ, to make the case why Christ matters. And again, the facts in evidence indicate that evangelicals are doing a much better job at providing, if nothing else, at least that initial “why” far better than we are. What happens after they leave the Church, how many congregations they hop, not to put too blunt of a point on it, is absolutely irrelevant. It’s that initial leave that matters, and they’re leaving for something they perceive as lacking in the Church.

If you’re OK with saying “If you don’t think it matters, then don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” fine. Forgive me (and others here) if we want to help people not even get out the door in the first place, or come back if they’ve already left.

I was away from the Church for about 30 years,because of some really bad experiences with the nuns, and a young adult confession with a crabby old priest who gave me the nth degree on chastity when I’d done nothing to deserve it. In that immediate post-Vatican world, all the priests I knew left to marry, all that was certain became uncertain, and the religious themselves were so filled with doubt that they were unable to guide anyone. The churches were emptied of their beauty: the icons, the incense, the music, and the entire form of the faith changed to the point that one did not know how to grasp it again.

But at the same time, I’d had it with the severe Jansenist-tainted emphasis on sin and damnation that twisted and suffocated, and wanted to live, be joyful, experience, taste, grasp life with both hands to the fullest extent.

Then I had some really fantastic experiences with the Maryknolls in Latin America, and learned first hand about the liberation and humanity of the Gospels and the transformations that evangelization brings about. These worked in me for a number of years, but it was when I had children that I came back to the Church, so that they would get the formation. By that time, the truth of Catholic teaching on sin and redemption was pretty clear. You live and see others live, and learn by that.

I still hung back, but my children sensed my inauthenticity and I had to go deeper, for their sakes, and there encountered Christ.

Then there was the call to go deeper. And I’ve found a means to do that by membership in a lay organization, that promotes the practice of certain common devotions that include contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament, daily rosary, the practice the daily Ignatian examen, Reconciliation every two weeks, daily mass, regular retreats, regular spiritual direction by another lay member, and the fellowship of other Catholics where we can, in a small group setting, share our struggles and encourage each other in being faithful. Our little movement is very orthodox, and gets lots of criticism, but I find that it enables me to go deeper than just going to Mass on Sunday ever did–because all that devotional practice turns me to Christ over and over again during the day. I’ve rediscovered those things that deeply attracted me to the Church as a child, and it’s been like coming home again.

The problem as I see it is that everyone maximizes our differences in the way we practice not only Christianity, but even Catholicism. We seek out the negative without ever giving a care about the sameness; the oneness that we DO have. So what that the Catholics seem to appear to be arrogant because they say (it’s true) they have the fullness of faith; so what that the Evangelicals and Protestants(quite a derogatory word if you think about it…here’s got to be a better word to describe a Christian community than “protester” although I know that’s what they did) know how to evangelige better than anyone else; so what if some of the Orthodox Churches are steeped in more tradition than an Itialian family reunion…

1Cor1:10 shows the differences that even Paul had to deal with and that was right after Christ ascended.
My point is…
If you go back through these posts and look closely enough, you’ll see that the Church (big C) is made of these churches (little c) that all understand Christ in a completely different manner – maybe for a reason. We are all not in the same place or on the same level – as much as we think we should be, it’s just not the way it is…yet. Until that day arrives, maybe the solution(I know no one has asked for a soulution but I’m giving you one anyway…it’s what I do – just ask my wife) is to focus on Jesus and the COMMONALITIES that each Christian denomination shares…you know the “attracting more flys with honey…” theory.
It hurts and is the work of the evil one to focus on the divisions.

I agree with Sherry’s idea that Catholics need to do a better job in creating a faith community and faith family. I’m a convert, and the bigest fan of Pope Benedict around, I attend a parish that uses the LKM and I”m committed to my faith. But, coming from a small Protestant church, it has been really hard that: beyond one Sunday morning handshake, I don’t know my pastor and he doesn’t know me; no one in the parish has yet to say word one to me in greeting; there don’t appear to be any fellowship like opportunities; there is just a general mood that once Mass is over, we need to clear the Church for the next group coming in so move along. It’s not enough that I’m going to revert to being a Protestant, but it is depressing sometimes to not have a group of believing friends available for support.

It seems to me that you’re offering all the reasons you can not to grasp the real problem, which is to confront postmodernism (or any of the “isms”), but to accommodate them. You seem to think that the only way to draw people into the Church or to keep them there is to talk down to them by offering them as little as possible. You should rather try to raise them up by challenging them to envision the world according to premodern principles, not to see a Church that is in line with the latest fads. Premodern does not mean old fashioned or out of step. It means having a hierarchy of “goods,” with God at the summit. It means knowing our place in the cosmos. All you seem to want to do is adopt the latest therapeutic fad or the latest evangelical programme without realizing that these carry their own baggage and theological denaturing.

Janice 102, It seems to me that Clem is trying to tackle the problem of why people leave. If they leave, his assumption is, it’s because they aren’t getting something they value from Catholicism.

I’m coming from the assumptions that before you get to the commitment, people need to be given WHY it’s important, WHY they should work, WHY it’s relevant to them. Evangelizing a post-modern culture REQUIRES that it be approached in that direction. As Amy has said, what we have here is a failure to make the case for Christ, to make the case why Christ matters. And again, the facts in evidence indicate that evangelicals are doing a much better job at providing, if nothing else, at least that initial “why” far better than we are. What happens after they leave the Church, how many congregations they hop, not to put too blunt of a point on it, is absolutely irrelevant. It’s that initial leave that matters, and they’re leaving for something they perceive as lacking in the Church.

His comments don’t read to me as accomodating so much as trying to reach people where they are, because if you can’t reach them there, the rest isn’t going to work. They’ll just tune you out.

St Paul described himself as being all things to all men so he could reach out to everyone, reach them on their own level. Then he brought them higher. But first he had to get their attention. I think that’s what Clem is saying we need to do now. Figure out where people are, and how to reach them so we can teach them their real place in the cosmos.

Three times now I’ve asked you to demonstrate an argument is being made, or offer a way to engage the culture. Three times you’ve come back with a form of “you just don’t get it.” So I’m not expecting a real response here – but please, show me where I (or anyone else) are stating we need to accommodate a post-modern culture. Please tell me where I (or anyone else here) am saying we need to change our fundamental teachings to make people in this culture become Catholic. Where is anyone saying we need to dumb down our teachings? Where is ANYONE saying we don’t need to offer the fullness of the truth?

What you simply don’t seem to understand is that, before we can “raise people up,” we need to make the case that they SHOULD be raised up in the first place. I’ve yet to see you make an argument where saying “this is the truth, step up or get out” actually WORKS. Because I can tell you, in 5 years of doing parish ministry, not ONCE does “deal with it or get out” actually lead to conversion. Frankly, it results in “getting out,’ which you seem to be OK with. Be honest with us here, are you OK with just waiving goodbye to those that can’t “deal with it?” If it is, that’s fine, I just want to know which level we’re discussing this on.

Where has anyone offered as an example some “therapeutic fad?” Why do you hold speaking to the culture in a way they can understand is such contempt? You seem to be missing the fact that this was part of the genius of John Paul II – he never once denied the objective truth the Church teaches, but instead of saying “this is how it is,” he constantly tried to make the case that our subjective (or “post-modern” if you will) experience corresponds to that truth (try studying Theology of the Body if you don’t buy that). Engaging a post-modern culture doesn’t mean denying the Truth the Church teaches – it means bringing them to that Truth in a way that they understand.

If we can’t speak to the culture and bring Christ to a culture in a way the culture understands, then what business does the Church have being the Church?

Yes, John Paul tried to reach people “where they were,” and that included his liturgies. He liked the notion of inculturation: you just take dogma and incorporate it into a given culture. But that is not the only strategy. And inculturation is not the strategy currently in favor today.

Pope Benedict is trying to work with interculturality (a word he himself has used in his articles/talks): the idea that the Church has its own history and traditions, which encounter a given culture/society. But the key here is that the Church has priority. And the point of becoming Catholic is to conform onself, not only to dogma, but to the traditions of the Church. That includes liturgical traditions. There is a language of posture, gesture, in addition to verbal language and artistic language. It probably seems unduly formal to today’s ultra-informal types, but that is the tradition of the Church. The Pope thinks that it is more appropriate to the worship of God and for the conduct of Catholics, whether at worship or in society. He is even debating the usefulness and appropriateness of the huge, outdoor Masses that were such a staple of John Paul’s pontificate, as not being proper to the worship of God.

Now I’m sure that this appears as not dealing with the way “things are,” but the Church is supposed to be counter-cultural. The reason you think I am way off the mark is that for 50 years the Church has been in an aberrant state of experimentation and accommodation to the prevailing winds. But the retrenchment of Benedict XVI is nothing more than going back to the tradition of the Church.

The West is not full of “Ethiopians” studying the scriptures alone and delighted to find a St. Philip who will help them understand. As noted above, there are a few who read their way into the Church, but they are a small minority of the people we need to reach.

St. Paul preached on Mars Hill at the temple to the unknown god because his audience already accepted the existence of higher powers who intervene in human affairs. What the West is full of now is people who have absorbed the dominant secular post-Christian culture (sixty years ago this was modern; now it is postmodern) and are thus indifferent to Christian “inside baseball”. The details of liturgy, formation, and fellowship matter only to the extent that they bring others to experience God. It is our job to show others by example that we genuinely believe the faith of the Apostles, that we genuinely are being sanctified by it, and that we genuinely bring the love of God to others by our actions.

Postmodernism frames every social interaction in terms of power relations and Darwinian competition, i.e., words and actions are merely mechanisms to be used in gaining or defending advantage. To a postmodern, it’s a given that the Catholic Church pronounces as it does in order to control people and increase its own standing; that’s what organizations do.

The only way the Church is going to confront postmodernism is firstly by convincing people that a postmodern view is not true, and secondly by encouraging people to see that the Catholic view could be True (actually convincing them cannot be done by argument but only by the Holy Spirit).

To do the first, the Church must pierce through the cynicism that permeates Western culture. People don’t want to believe that we’re all just talking meat governed by random accident, people want to see purpose. People don’t want to believe that friendship and love is just a mask for use or be used, they want to see that these things are real. The Church must remind them of what they already know deep down, and proclaim that the dictator of relativism has no clothes. This first part is not true evangelism but proto-evangelism.

To do the second, the Church must strive always to give glory to Jesus Christ and save none of it for herself. This is not a call for iconoclasm or parading around in sackcloth and ashes; it is a call for renouncing opportunities to glorify ourselves (or our Tribe, Faction, School, and Party) and embracing opportunities to show with quiet confidence that the Gospel and the Eucharist really do transform everything for the better. The Church needs to act one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; if she takes care of those, the rest will take care of itself.

Janice
The drawback to Pope Benedict is that he has shown a strange turn of intellect when it comes to understanding only certain things outside his comfort zone….remembering here that to our knowledge as human beings who must depend on media, he recently was warm not rebuking nor reserved in an audience to French president Sarkozy (born Catholic and twice married / now with consort/ model Carla Bruini who dated Mick Jagger and technically could have been adopted by either Mick or Sarkozy) ….yet on the level of culture and not on personal behaviour (remember John the Baptist and why he was killed?), the then Ratzinger was not so warm about Bob Dylan and in comments in an 1997 interview noted that Bob Dylan was the wrong kind of prophet to have on stage with John Paul …. true maybe of some of Dylan’s works but Dylan’s early civil rights songs were prophetic actually and did far more for racial progress in the US than perhaps the Catholic Church did at the time. How is one upset by Dylan and yet cosy to Sarkosy…who is apparently the Mayor Guiliani of France? Why quote Origen in a laudatory manner who like Dylan was sporadically right and sporadically heretical so to speak, and then brush off Dylan for not being perfectly orthodox in matters of wisdom?

And in 1997 in a French magazine interview, the then Ratzinger noted that Buddhism was “self involved” (the magazine used the French for auto erotic but let’s give Benedict the benefit of the doubt and imagine that he said “self involved”) and Hinduism had a “circle of hell” in its theory of reincarnation….previously his CDF in a 1990 document said some of the same things. Why do we have Ecumenical councils then? Did he try to “think with the Church” first at all…. which knew that both religions had problems but for the sake of peace which we are supposed to represent…looked for what good was in them…saying in Vatican II in Nostra Aetate:

“Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.(4)”

It goes without saying that Buddhism and Hinduism have problems. Nostra Aetate implies that but has the courtesy and peacefulness not to yell it out loud as the primary insight of a Church that is supposed to value peace making. Does Benedict? Islam and Brazil natives are not so sure after Regensburg and the Brazil trip.

Is this the best Pope to point to as wise at the level of understanding people that are different than he?

Whether or not Pope Benedict is the best for this time is a judgment history will render, not any of us. However, in my own judgment, he will be remembered as a great Pope for having brought back Catholic tradition. Personally, I find him a refreshing change after John Paul and I particularly like his bluntness and forthrightness. I also like one of points he made in Regensburg about the harmony between Biblical faith and Greek philosophy on the question of the Logos:

“Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: “In the beginning was the λόγος”. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word – a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance.”

Benedict thus puts to rest the dehellenization of Bultmann, et al. His whole quest for Truth is of a piece with this and thus his bluntness, which you find so distressing. Postmoderns need this; they are ready to sell out all of their principles for a phony peace. In fact, he once said: “Peace is not the first civic duty and a Bishop whose only concern is not to have any problems and to gloss over as many conflicts as possible is an image I find repulsive (Salt of the Earth, p. 82).”

Janice
The Regensburg speech was actually great except for the Islam comment anecdote that was totally avoidable and totally replaceable with a similar anecdote making the same point but less quotable by the media and a nun is now gone with 4 bullets in the back due to a bluntness that cost Benedict nothing personally that we know of…. and we forget her name already. She should have been given a funeral in Rome.

Actually, FITO, I think the Islam quote was essential for drawing sharp relief between what Moslems and Christians believe. Where once we talked about Christendom, then Judeo-Christian civilization, now there is a growing multi-culti tendency to speak of “the Abrahamic religions” as if Islam’s fundamental precepts were alike to Judaism’s and Christianity’s and had the same societal implications. It is pathetic that the Moslem backlash caused that nun’s martyrdom, but we cannot avoid preaching the Gospel because someone might get hurt. Should Polycarp have offered the pinch of incense to Caesar for the sake of his fellow Christians?

For my part, Benedict is a wise shepherd but still human. Europeans imbibe a certain amount of condescension toward Americans and American things in their mothers’ milk; it may not be right, but it’s not unexpected either that Benedict like previous popes is sometimes more lenient toward fellow Europeans than toward Americans.

Going back to what I wrote earlier regarding the postmodern view of things, it is essential, in Benedict’s attempts (which I applaud) to reestablish and refresh Catholic culture and tradition, that care be taken not to shore up antique notions of earthly pomp and privilege for clergy. The postmodern mind will not connect it with Christ’s kingship, but with the world of Richelieu and Wolsey. Given the scandalous and self-serving behavior of certain Catholic bishops in recent years, this would be most unhelpful to evangelism.

Craig
He did not preach the gospel…he detailed the faults of others as he connected the violence of Islam to the rupture of reason and faith which it allows and he was absolutely correct but he detailed their faults…..without ever explaining or ackowledging why Catholicism used the very same violence also to control religious belief …..right after the papal bulls: Ad Extirpandum in 1252 (brought back torture) and right after Romanex Pontifex in 1455 (Portuguese pope) and right after Inter Caetera in 1494 (Spanish pope). The latter two allowed pre emptive wars against the unbelievers and moslems and the taking of their kingdoms and their enslavement by Spain and Portugal with a view to converting them with a proviso in the 1455 bull that no future authority of any level could alter it and the 1494 bull claimed identical rights for Spain whereupon that Pope divided the world between the two nations….the no future voidance clause is perhaps why Portugal was last nation out of the slave trade since it could ignore subsequent papal bulls by the Italian Popes….but could not ignore England’s fleet in the 19th century.
Again in visiting Brazil, Benedict seemed totally unaware of Romanex Pontifex which helped establish inequality between rich and poor in Brazil for centuries and which some native groups in SE Asia have petitioned Rome for years to declare void….and it is native groups in Brazil that were offended by Benedict.

Further… Christ did not walk around detailing the evils of the Roman Empire ever but only of the Pharisees who He was sent to convert …..because detailing Rome’s sins would have brought an end to His life too quickly and that is why fraternally correcting the ungodly evil…. is not recommended in moral theology books on fraternal correction since there is little reason to think they will change and there is much danger….hence the old translation of I Sam.25:17 said that Nabal was a “son of Belial to whom no man could speak.”

I am sure it is unintentional on your part. And perhaps it is a misunderstanding, or an excess of sensitivity, on my part. But your tone seems, to me, slightly ungracious.

Give your Evangelical brothers and sisters (and they are that, you know) a little grace: Many of them are as rigorous in their devotions and their personal holiness as you could wish. Many — in my experience, the majority — are not the wishy-washy drifters you describe.

I am an Evangelical Christian contemplating the Catholic Church. (My wife and I laughed out loud to see the description, above, of Evangelicals who become Catholic being, uniformly, “interested in history” and “approaching it through an intellectually rigorous process” and “often without much contact with actual Catholics.” I am that description, exactly. And I come toward the Catholic Church because I desire authenticity.)

But I have served the Lord in a Methodist church, several Baptist churches, and one non-denominational church. In each place I have seen men and women, leaders and laity, who were filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, searching the scriptures, having their minds transformed to know what the perfect, pleasing, and holy will of God is, praying with power. I have seen them sent by God to other lands and into danger to bring the Gospel. I have witnessed one miraculous healing second-hand (a close second-hand, mind you; she’s my mother’s friend). I know of two women in my family alone receiving visions from God at important decision-points in their lives — and they were not disobedient to the heavenly visions.

I say this to caution you that you do not dismiss the authenticity of the Spirit of God moving even amongst Protestants and Evangelicals. Perhaps a healthy way to regard Evangelicals would be to view them as Priscilla and Aquila viewed Apollos: “He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John…they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” Luke does not, I think, belittle the ministry of Apollos, even though it admittedly lacked something.

Is the Liturgy important? I have faith that it is, even though I only begin to learn of it now, as an adult. Is it edifying? I reason that it is, otherwise God would not have fed His Children through it for two millennia.

But is it the only important thing? It cannot be. If it were, it would be a required, all-or-nothing proposition, and Salvation, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, would be impossible outside the Catholic Church. I hope and believe you are not arguing that. (If you are, Church teaching is against you.)

Logically, then, it is possible for “an important thing” to be present in (some, perhaps many) Evangelical churches while being absent in (some, perhaps many) Catholic parishes, even though they retain the liturgy. Res ipsa loquitur.

And when we see the 8-to-1 ratio, it is no unreasonable conclusion — however shallow some Evangelicals may be — that you cannot fool all of the Elect, all of the time, and that there is something there of worth, something of substance to be observed and learned from. Otherwise how’re all those spiritually-alive Evangelicals staying that way?

About ten years ago, a moderately-famous Christian musician was speaking to a group of people (I was one) at a Christian songwriting seminar. As he spoke, he mentioned that he admired the secular songwriter Sting for his musicianship, and also for the humility and civility he showed when speaking to his audience at a concert in Nashville. Someone else in the group asked, “Hey, isn’t he — Sting, I mean — an atheist? Or, at least, not Christian?”

The moderately-famous musician responded, “Why, yes, I think you’re right about that. So we should pray for him. And I’m not saying we should emulate his theology. But when he shows excellence in his craft and virtue in his demeanor…is it not proper Christian humility on our part, to admit it, and emulate that?”

No one is saying ditch the liturgy — or if they are, I am against it. But there may be something — something not mutually exclusive with the liturgy — to be learned from the Evangelicals. Reason suggests it, and humility should allow for the possibility.